


Drunk on You

by kiaronna



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Confessions, Drunkenness, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9152569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiaronna/pseuds/kiaronna
Summary: Viktor is trapped in a time loop during the Sochi GPF. And, unfortunately, in his coach's body.“I know exactly what you’re doing, I’ve done it a million times,” Viktor says, with Yakov's voice, “don’t try to pull this disappearing act on me. You heard what I said. Now wait for me to come talk to you, Vitya.”“No, no, service is terrible in here! If it’s anything about practice, text me.”“You—““Bye, Yakov!”There’s only a dial tone.He stares, stunned, at his own image fading from the phone screen into black. That teasingly vacant tone, that dismissal of his coach, the cheerful greeting…In this time loop, he’ll be dealing with Viktor Nikiforov. He’ll be dealing with… himself. And, apparently, a soulmate that won't reveal his true identity.(A one-shot collection of soulmate AUs. 9. A groundhog day and body swap AU, where the universe won't let time march on until the soulmates meet the right way.)French translation!





	1. Drunk on You

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Ivre de toi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886330) by [Silu_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silu_chan/pseuds/Silu_chan)



> A quick explanation of this soulmate AU: after you meet your soulmate, you become progressively drunker around them, unless you're touching. Being absent from your soulmate for a while will result in a hangover, but eventually you'll return to your normal sober life, unless you meet them again. Confusing? Please bear with me.
> 
> If you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me.  
> I've also published this work at fanfiction.net under the same author name.

The universe has a unique sense of humor. Viktor is Russian; he's supposed to be the one who can handle his liquor. But the instant he sees his soulmate for the second time that day, he's a drunken man—giddy and giggling, snapping photos, wondering when it is right to approach and say _you are giving me wings_. He knows the other man feels it too, even more strongly, his cheeks flushed, his muscles limber and step tottering.

"I'm so drunk," the Japanese man whispers, low and conspiratorial, to the figure skating champion. "But I can- _hic_ —still beat anyone at a dance competition."

 _There's only champagne here,_ Viktor wants to laugh, _You know who's making you feel this way_. His sight is beginning to blur; he feels himself falling deeper into a drunken and lazy stupor until his soulmate's arms find their way around him and the symptoms fall off to a pleasant buzz. He's still drunk enough to feel oddly and deeply flattered by the gyrating request _be my coach_ ; still sober enough to know that the flush in his own cheeks is adoration for this sloppy yet genuine man. He laughs and claps in the dance-off, he watches dreamily and with stomach dropping amusement at the pole routine.

They dance, and it's almost too much for his limbs to handle, to say nothing of his heart. Then it's all over, or maybe it's all beginning, and they're stumbling through dim hotel halls with their hands interlinked.

"I won," his soulmate says in shiny eyed wonder.

"I won," Viktor laughs. "But there's always next year."

"No," the man replies seriously, "I won _you_." Their fingers are interlaced. Viktor feels himself becoming more sober by the minute, but his heart is still glowing with warmth, bubbling up like poured champagne. He leans down to kiss him—just a kiss, no farther, he swears— but a palm presses to the champion's cheek and a smile fills his whole vision. Fingertips are dancing across his silver fringe, and then their foreheads are pressed together, and they're both _laughing_ , still laughing, two drunkards alone with their antics. _Isn't this feeling supposed to go away when we touch?_ Viktor wonders in a daze, but he can't think too hard about it. Everything is warm. Everything is hazy. Everything is sweet.

"Come to my room," he tells him, and his soulmate lets go.

"I can't," is the breezy reply. "I promised I'd call home."

 _Surely you're joking_ , Viktor thinks, but it becomes all too real, and he is left empty and alone in a hallway. It feels like standing on a podium; there is no surprise in being by himself, not anymore. The next day, he waits in his room, because all of the skaters know where he's staying, feels his body grow heavy with the drunken need to _touch_. Yakov forbids him from interviewing; the champion is slurring too badly. He dreams fitfully of the Japanese skater, and eagerly waits.

* * *

By the third day, he's still heard nothing from his soulmate, and the hangover begins in earnest. He misses jumps; he holds his head in cold showers, turns off the lights in his house, tries to fill up the soul bond hangover with physical liquor. Nothing works. _Surely_ the Japanese man feels the same; surely he's realized by now how awful their separation will be.

 _Come back_ , Viktor wills him desperately.

He doesn't.

The hangover ends, finally, but Viktor's already winning competitions again. What else is there to do? Being sober makes him more of a mess, so in his off time he drinks and plays ridiculous games with Makkachin. How had he been like this for so long?

He watches the video, and the mere sight of his soulmate on screen makes Viktor's stomach flip. It's beautiful, more beautiful than anything he's ever performed in just the expression of it. But the video is something worse than that—it is a love letter, or a siren call, unavoidable in its supposedly innocent admiration. Yakov forbids him from going. Viktor goes.

On his way, he imagines them together, he and this sweetly drunk man. Viktor sees him welcoming him into his home, his hot springs, taking his hand and scolding with soft confidence, _I've been waiting. Why didn't you chase me?_ In response, Viktor would just give him what he'd asked for, what he'd wanted: a coach. The champion is tipsy at the very thought of it, at having that raw talent in that uninhibited body, and having it to himself to form, and _loving_ every moment of it.

His soulmate passes out at the sight of him.

Viktor is a quick learn, and despite his position as coach he spends most of his first week doing that. He also spends most of his first week as a sloppy, half drunken man, because despite the intoxication that he knows swept over his body immediately at the sight of the other skater in the onsen, his student is averse to touching.

His soulmate is quiet. Shy. Every touch of Viktor, even ones just to dissipate the soulmate induced drunken mist clouding his mind, are met with tense rejection and fleeing. He runs his fingers gently over his student's skin—rejection. He invades his personal space abruptly—rejection. He waits, not touching, until his vision is blurring and gravity is heavy upon him and his mind comes up with the brilliant idea that they should have a sleepover—rejection!

"Why can't we sleep together?" He nearly slurs, his knuckles barely rapping the door, missing it every few knocks. "Yuuuuuri."

"No!" Comes the wail from the other side of the door.

Pure _frustration_. The legend begins to wonder if his soulmate cares at all—if perhaps the boy was enthralled by the idea of having Viktor Nikiforov wrapped desperately around his finger as his soulmate but never intending to be in an actual relationship with him. Then he secretly watches the Japanese skater move in anxious, dazed circles on the ice late into the night, and his heart swells, and Viktor rejects that idea.

So he's tried everything. Or most everything. Finally, he tries patience, which has never been his strong suit. Yuuri will come around eventually—he _has_ to. He can't afford to be drunk and stumbling on the ice, which he will be if he and Viktor don't share a skinship.

Yuuri does far more than just come around. He accepts touches—he _initiates_ touches. When they talk about his life, about his time in Detroit, Yuuri is flushing and quiet but earnest when he answers. Being far away makes Viktor slur, but being close still makes Yuuri stutter. And they are breathlessly close as time goes on.

* * *

The night after he's kissed him at the cup of China, Yuuri is timid—at least until he's got his coach cornered in their hotel room. Viktor is feeling sickeningly drunk after having kept his hands to himself following their public display, but the nausea settles when his glowing Yuuri takes his face between two calloused palms and kisses him again.

"I'm not fun," his soulmate warns fretfully. "I'm not—I'm not like you, Viktor, are you okay with that?"

They're touching everywhere. Viktor knows he's supposed to be sober, but somehow his impulse control is nowhere to be found.

"Don't be any other way," he whispers, and they're kissing again, and Viktor is using his tongue in a manner that would definitely not be appropriate for a live television broadcast.

In the morning, his twitter feed is awash in the news.

 _'THE HUG at the cup of China!'_ He snorts at that one. The next headline is better.

_'Legend Viktor Nikiforov and student kiss on the ice!'_

The last headline makes him smile more than any other.

_'Nikiforov, playboy extraordinaire and long without attachments, chooses student over soulmate!'_

He wants to correct them with a giddy laugh, but firstly he wants to share this with Yuuri, and with a flick of his wrist he shows his sleepy soulmate the dramatic article on his phone screen.

"Look," he exclaims with near glee. "Look at how ridiculous they're being." It must be too early, because Yuuri's eyes glaze and he rolls over in bed. Viktor can't have that—he lightly smacks at the body beneath the covers and smothers the Japanese skater's dark hair in kisses. _I'm so drunk_ , Viktor thinks in amazement, _I'm so drunk off of_ him _._ "Wake up, we have a flight to catch." Yuuri intakes a shaking breath, trembling so much that Viktor almost questions it aloud, before he rolls his limber frame from beneath the sheets and is padding off to the bathroom.

* * *

Yuuri changes after the cup of China, and Viktor is definitely not complaining. There's a somber seriousness to almost everything he does, moreso than his typically strained behavior, and when Yuuri invades his room in the middle of the night a week after the cup of China, Viktor is pleasantly surprised. They talk for a few hours, starting out with amusingly trite comments and deepening into an affectionate exchange of ideas. Viktor holds his skater's hand, circles his thumb over the scarred palm, sways back and forth as he chats with the joy of time spent together while Yuuri watches with a small half smile. A comforting silence has fallen over the inn, and Viktor is sure all of Yuuri's family is fast asleep in bed.

"Do you often have trouble sleeping?" It's a gentle question, one Viktor forgets how he's stumbled across, but the Japanese man shrugs and nods.

"Everything tenses up, and my mind races, and sometimes it's just too much. Do you?"

"Sometimes," Viktor admits. "Mostly I just forget and it becomes late. Usually I'm too exhausted from practice to stay up, but every once in a while I get nervous and sleepless about other things." His student is processing this information slowly, and Viktor's heart flutters. "I think my soulmate could help, though." He tightens his grip on Yuuri's hand, only to be met with a look from the younger that Viktor clearly recognizes but hasn't seen in weeks— _rejection_. "What-" he begins, feeling betrayed, but Yuuri's lips are on him, all over, and the black haired man suddenly has him pinned to the bed. _Eros_ , is all Viktor can think, and he appreciates how sober he is so that he's not numb to the delicious friction of Yuuri moving against him, of teeth nipping the skin of his neck. His soulmate's hands are working smoothly on his robe's tie, the hand formerly holding his sliding up his chest to rest atop his heart. Viktor hears words, can't understand them, but knows they are in breathless, rapid Japanese, and he opens his lips to respond in his own frantic Russian _I love you, I love you, I love you_ —

"Don't talk, please," Yuuri interrupts, and it's a strange sort of agony that comes over his face. "Just—don't, Viktor."

"Why?" He struggles to sit up but his soulmate pushes him back down with a fierce desperation.

"I'm trying—" the Japanese man breaks off, bites his lip, ducks his head. Viktor just stares at him, baffled. "You're mine," he says finally, lowly, "You promised to keep your eyes on me."

"I am," the champion tells him, and wonders what he's done wrong. Brown eyes meet his icy blue, and despite the warmth of color Viktor sees a distinct lack of passionate heat, sees only a different emotion that is hard to grasp. The eyes close. Viktor is cut off.

It's hard to process when Yuuri is sucking at his collarbone. "I think we should talk—" Viktor tries to interject, but the Japanese skater's hand dips low, searching across his body, and his hips rock against his will. "Yuuri, I'm worried about—" His student's hand finds what it's looking for and his mind is going blank in a searing blaze of white delight. Habit catches him, and he catches Yuuri's lips and invades them. _Maybe he doesn't want to talk_ , Viktor thinks in a confused rush, _He's never been a huge fan of it._ He can feel himself letting go, falling into the delicious movements, hoping that he can show Yuuri things he knows his beloved has never experienced before.

He kisses his soulmate's cheeks, and is surprised to find that they're wet. Suddenly his Yuuri's reckless movements against him mean nothing.

"Why are you crying?"

The emotion in his eyes is misery. It's loss. Viktor recognizes it suddenly, knows it, and it breaks his heart.

"Of course I'm crying," the younger chokes out. "You're going to leave me."

"Never, дорогой," Viktor insists, even if he doesn't understand what his student is saying. Yuuri is anxious, and whatever is tearing him up is beyond Viktor at this point. "Is this about what I said at the Cup of China? You know I didn't mean that. I think you need sleep. It's been a long week." He pats the mattress beside him, and Yuuri's eyes dart there and back, before settling into grim determination.

"I'm going to my room."

Then Yuuri is gone, and the alcohol of the soulbond burns through his veins all night. It sits rankling in his stomach, and his mind flickers through things hazily and irrationally and with heated anger. Yuuri means well, means well always because he is a wonderful man, but Viktor is exhausted with trying to understand him, trying to reach him. He intends to have a long talk with him in the morning.

In the morning, it's like the fight never even happened. Yuuri lets him touch, and touches him back without any of the desperation of the previous night. The legend reasons that anxiety over competition must have gotten the better of him, just for a while. In two days, the conversation falls away and the Rostelecom cup looms on the horizon.

During the Rostelecom cup, Yuuri tells him to go home and be with his dying dog.

Viktor cannot express how much this means, how much it means to know that Yuuri will be half drunk and miserable throughout his free skate just so that Viktor can see his beloved Makkachin. The desire to tell him no, to insist that he stays, is powerful. But the insistent love Yuuri feels is powerful too.

"You have to go," the skater proclaims with no room for argument. They buy the champion's ticket home together, entwined on the bed, Yuuri clicking through the airport webpage while Viktor's heart trembles and wonders how on earth he will ever _deserve_ this man. He buries his face into his skater's neck, pushes closer and closer, touches him until he has to go catch his cab, hopes that somehow the soul bond will be merciful.

It is not merciful to him. By the time he returns home from the vet with Makkachin the following day to watch Yuuri on the screen at the Rostelecom cup, he can barely stand. When Yuuri takes the ice, he feels fear sink into him. _Yuuri will stumble—Yuuri will fall, because I left him to suffer through this alone. I will have ruined things for him, and he'll never forgive me_.

Then Yuuri skates. He does not skate well, but he skates. And he enters the Grand Prix.

* * *

On the way home from the airport together, his vision and mind finally clear from the intoxication of the soul bond with their fingers laced together, he tries to make conversation with his Yuuri.

"I've thought this before," he says, "But I'm amazed by your tolerance. I guess it has to do with your stamina."

"What?" Yuuri's gaze is mild and warm, still satisfied by their reunion in the airport. Their cab driver turns up the Japanese radio over the sound of their accented English.

"The soul bond," Viktor explains, feeling foolish. "I mean the soul bond. You were still graceful out on the ice—I'm Russian, we're supposed to have good tolerance, and even I could hardly walk to the couch to lay down and watch you on television while I was in Japan."

Yuuri abruptly makes searing eye contact and doesn't break it.

"What," he repeats tonelessly. Viktor feels helpless, almost embarrassed.

"Oh," he admits hesitantly, "Maybe it's just particularly bad for me?"

"You know my history." He looks the other way out the dark window. _History?_ Viktor thinks. _Does he mean the banquet? He was still graceful, still pole dancing, even though I know he had to be drunk out of his mind off of our first meeting. He was drunk, just by the look of him. I suppose skating isn't that different._ "Of course my soulbond wouldn't affect me." His grip on Viktor's hand tightens. "And I won't let it, even if it does come. I know what I want." _A gold medal_ , Viktor thinks to himself, pleased. _So driven_.

They continue on in silence for a while. Yuuri's hand is so soft, so warm, and he finds himself playing with it on the long drive back to Hasetsu. _Pinky_ , he thinks, wiggling it and watching Yuuri's face flush in the dark of the car. _Thumb. Index finger—his nails are long_. He is assaulted by an image of them curling into his back, and he has to dismiss it and calm himself. _Middle finger. Like he would ever use it, this polite Japanese man._ He pauses at the last. _Ring finger. It's empty. Too empty._

The decision is made by the time they fall into his bed back at Hasetsu and fall asleep, still holding each other.

* * *

Yuuri's gone running when he wakes in the morning, so he settles with chatting lazily with Mari at the breakfast table. He knows his soulmate must have woken up early, because he's already dropping his chopsticks with breathless laughter as he eats.

"Sorry," he apologizes as he knocks over the centerpiece, "My soulbond is unforgiving. I hardly remember how to walk straight, anymore." He's struck by sudden, eager curiosity. "What was Yuuri like, when he came home to Hasetsu? Was his hangover awful?"

Mari eyes him with wary surprise as Hiroko bustles off to the kitchen. "He never mentioned anything," she replies slowly. For some reason, Viktor feels he's invaded foreign space for the first time since arriving in Japan.

"What about you? Have you met your soulmate? How drunk do you get?" He asks cheerfully, and realizes just as quickly it's a mistake. His mouth is too large, too careless, and he longs for Yuuri to soften him and his blows. Mari shuffles the plates.

"I was too excited when I met my soulmate," she admits, "And now he won't really interact, maybe because of it. We see each other every once in a while, and it's just…" she shifts and stares off into a corner. "Alcohol is a depressant, too, you know." Viktor feels his heart jump into his throat. He's never considered it, never let it come into his head. His soulbond's intoxication has always been a high for him, always. "I have to admit that we're all scared of Yuuri finding his soulmate—terrified that his mind won't handle the intoxication well if they spend too long apart, because he's an anxious guy and sometimes when he drank with us as a teenager, he'd panic rather than be a fun drunk. Luckily, I think his tolerance is pretty high. Still, as I'm sure you know, he panics a lot." She eyes him from the side. "You're saying he met his soulmate?"

He hadn't _told_ them? Why? Was he embarrassed? Yuuri was excruciatingly private, even with people he loved. Viktor settles for nodding, and Mari takes in a deep breath.

"Well," she muses, "He was very upset when he came back. We all thought it was about his career, and I think that's all he talked about with mom, but I suppose..."

His _career_? Viktor is hit with a sickening realization that makes his head spin more than it already has been in the past hour.

 _Alcohol is a depressant, too, you know_.

He stumbles to his feet. Yuuri, he has to find Yuuri.

Yuuri, who for the first several months of them knowing each other treated him like his foot was halfway out the door at all times. Yuuri, who is miserably odd and possessive at the mere mention of the word soulmate. Yuuri, who panics and lives in his own mind and is underconfident, who's still so smooth in movement when drunk that it's almost impossible to believe that he is. Yuuri, who's never verbally acknowledged that they are bonded at the core of them.

_"You know my history. Of course the soul bond wouldn't affect me."_

_"It's my fault, I forgot that you'd never had a lover."_

Yuuri is on the ice when he finds him, spinning in harried circles.

"Viktor," he says in greeting, and moves to the wall. "Watch me try—"

"Ssstupid," he feels himself slurring. His hand finds Yuuri's arm, and it becomes marginally easier to talk. "You're глупый. дурачить."

"You taught me those words," his soulmate says incredulously, mildly offended but mostly surprised, "You've been teaching me Russian for months. Are you really going to use them like I don't understand?"

"Well apparently дорогой and моя звезда and Моё золотце haven't gotten across to you," the legend huffs in half-serious fury. _Darling. My star. My gold._ Yuuri's arm slides from beneath Viktor's grip as he moves backwards easily on the ice, his face flushing and eyes tenderly devastated. "You know what those mean, don't you?" Viktor demands, and then softens. "Don't you, Yuuri?" He grabs Yuuri by the shoulders, leaning out embarrassingly far over the rail, and smoothly reels him back in. "Come back. I want to be fully competent for this conversation. This has gone on long enough."

"What—" Yuuri begins hesitantly, but Viktor's having none of it.

" _Soulmate_ ," he hisses. The Japanese skater flinches at the mere mention of it. "You know you've found him."

"I haven't," he's shaking his dark head wildly, "And I'd choose you, Viktor, please let me. Please let me," he finishes, half heartbroken. "I love… I love…" He's breaking off in huffs of frantic breath that solidify in the chill of Ice Castle's air.

"Calm down, моя звезда," he says into the tense silence that follows. "Come off the ice." Viktor meets him at the door, takes his hand, reverently unlaces his skates at the bench.

When Yuuri is in his socks, clutching his head between his hands and resolutely refusing to look at his coach, Viktor lightly pinches at his parted knees with both hands. Yuuri startles, but looks to him. "Viktor," he whispers.

"We should've had this conversation months ago. I was arrogant." He frowns. "And you were under-confident. How on earth did you not notice that we were soulmates? I was a ridiculously giddy _drunkard_ for the first few weeks I was in Hasetsu, before we got physical. I have literally been naked and sprawled across you more times than I can count, Yuuri, what were you thinking?" Those brown eyes are locked onto him, Yuuri's knees locked in their position. "The first few months after the last Grand Prix without you were _agony_. Yakov was ready to kill me, even if he did understand that I was ridiculously hungover."

"We," Yuuri breathes, " _We_ are?"

"Do you not remember the first time we met?"

"You asked me for a commemorative photo and I left in shame," Yuuri points out. "You had no idea who I was, and I'd utterly failed in competition. I felt sick and unsteady for the rest of the day. I could barely talk to Celestino normally."

" _Exactly_ ," Viktor responds pointedly, and Yuuri's jaw drops. "It took me a while, but by the banquet I'd figured it out."

Yuuri flushes. "We could've… at the banquet?"

 _We could've made love?_ _Да, черт возьми_ , Viktor thinks to himself, _I was already yours, and I'd hardly even talked to you yet_. He presses his forehead, frustrated, to Yuuri's knee.

"I've loved you for so long, and you thought… what? That I was playing with you and that my soulmate was somewhere else, with me ignoring them?"

"I knew you loved me," Yuuri replies, biting his lip, "I just thought that it'd end, at some point, and you'd go back to Russia. Go back to your career. To skating. To not having to deal with the soulbond, because your soulmate in Russia would be right there."

"You think my soulmate is in Russia?"

"Well, after the Rostelecom cup!" Yuuri protests. "You acted like coming back to Japan after that was stressing the soulbond!"

"Because I'd left my soulmate for the first time in months," Viktor asserts. "Because I'd left _you_ in Russia."

"Does Yurio know?" The Japanese skater asks suddenly, horrified and color draining from his tan face. "He's going to kill me. I took you from him. I assumed my skating and pure luck did it."

"Oh, Yurio knows." The champion remembers that uncomfortable conversation very well, held in terse Russian on the night of the boy's arrival.

" _You are being disgusting_ ," the younger skater had growled after they were apart from Yuuri for less than an hour, " _Pull yourself together and don't get drunk off of a PIGGY_." There had been one more thing. " _And stop flaunting it!"_

Flaunting it. He kisses his student's calf, and Yuuri shivers.

"Everyone else thought I was being ridiculously obvious, you know. You're the only one that had no idea."

"My family didn't know," Yuuri halfheartedly protests.

"Because they assumed you'd tell them if it were true!" Viktor laughs.

"Phichit did ask," Yuuri admits quietly. "He said I wasn't behaving normally."

"And then you miraculously realized that we were soulmates?" Viktor prompts. "Please tell me the thought at least crossed your mind, even if it didn't stick."

"I told him that I loved you." His voice is hushed. "And that I didn't care about soulmates."

Warmth spreads in the pit of his belly, his world tilting sweetly on its axis. Viktor feels strange, and a conversation he'd had with Yakov flits across his mind.

" _No one loves me_ ," he had told his coach. _No one even knows me._

" _Everyone loves you_ ," the man had replied gruffly. " _Did you not hear the cheers when you took the gold? Do you not see their eyes on you?"_

" _They love the idea of me,"_ he'd said, " _My skating forces them to. Until someday, when it won't anymore."_

" _Your soulmate will love you someday,"_ Yakov said quietly. " _That usually works out well_." Yakov's love hadn't. When Viktor had been in the depths of his soulmate induced hangover, Yakov had been harsh, because he understood better than anyone else how it felt.

 _They'll be forced to_ , Viktor had thought to himself. _Us being in love will be expected, because of the bond—us touching will be a necessity. It won't surprise anyone._

Yuuri had still been surprised. Surprised that Viktor had chosen him. Pleasantly surprised that they were soulmates. Surprised that Viktor felt anything through their bond at all, even now.

"You wanted me," he realizes in a hushed voice. "You would have stayed with me, even if it meant turning away from your soulmate and never experiencing the tipsy buzz of being with them? Even if you always thought I was ready to leave you, that I was _teasing_ you with the idea of my soulmate being out there waiting for me? You would have been hungover for me?"

Yuuri doesn't answer. It says everything for him.

"Well," Viktor hums, patting his soulmate's flushing face jovially, "I declare morning practice cancelled."

"I had katsudon yesterday," Yuuri explains, his tone wary, "I should probably exercise."

"Oh, we will, дорогой." He smiles lightly and stands, "In bed."

* * *

There are several realizations after that.

"I hugged _everyone_ after the Rostelecom cup," Yuuri is scandalized over dinner a week after their heart to heart, "And I threw up in the airport toilet. I thought it was nerves—I was drunk out of my _mind_."

* * *

"I didn't even talk to Viktor," Yuuri announces cheerfully to the other skaters, and beer is spewing from Viktor's lips.

"You don't _remember_?"

"You'd had so much champagne," Christophe laughs. "You were absolutely drunk."

"Just a little champagne," Viktor says, still reeling with it, "I saw you with the same empty glass every time I looked over from interviews and conversations."

"A different empty glass every time, maybe," Christophe hints.

"Celestino counted twenty," Phichit pipes in. "He said Yuuri was ridiculously drunk off of it."

"You were _actually drunk?_ " Twenty glasses of champagne, and the soulbond reacting from their first meeting—no wonder Yuuri had seemed so out of it that evening. Suddenly, his demure fiancé dancing on a pole makes so much sense. Suddenly, Yuuri having no idea they are soulmates makes so much more sense.

"What, Viktor, you thought it was just because of you?" Christophe teases. "You're not that special, hmm?"

"I almost took advantage of you," Viktor blurts, horrified, "I tried to take you to my _room_. Дерьмо! Дерьмо."

"I am interested in this topic," Phichit announces eagerly, "Please continue." His fingers are dancing over his phone.

"SHUT UP!" Yurio screams, slamming his hands on the table. "Shut UP, you disgusting old pervert!" Otabek pats him calmly on the arm, which Viktor stores in his mind for later before he is distracted.

"We talked?" Yuuri's innocent shining eyes are turned on him.

"You tried to have sex with him?" Minako asks, a little _too_ interested. "The first time you met?"

"How unfair," Christophe complains sensuously, "You're such a playboy. Take some responsibility, Viktor."

"I _am_ ," the champion skater insists, half serious, and then all eyes are on their rings and the whole restaurant is clapping for them at Phichit's behest.

* * *

Viktor expects the soul bond to be more merciful as they age. But even Yuuri leaving to coach for a few hours leaves him flushed and dazed and wanting. His phone rings.

"On the way home," Yuuri huffs across the line. "God, does the bond ever just make you _hot_? I'm burning up and I'm just trying to walk back."

"I'm drunk," Viktor informs him abruptly. "And naked."

"Oh," comes the strangled noise across the line from his husband.

"See you soon," the skating champion promises, pinching his lips to pass a kissing noise over the phone, "I expect you to help me out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Zoe ;) You know who you are. Thanks so much for reading my works!


	2. Pet Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri has to wear long sleeves and pants to hide all of them—the winding Cyrillic that covers his skin, spotted with English words, phrases in kanji (my katsudon), and even Greek, for heaven’s sake. Viktor only has three: his name in beautiful Cyrillic, something complex in kanji his Japanese neighbor is too scandalized to translate, and in English a single word: coach.  
> Soulmate AU where all of your partner's nicknames for you are inscribed on your skin from birth.  
> (A one-shot collection of soulmate AUs.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soulmate AU where all of your partner's nicknames for you are written on your skin from birth.

"They're _beautiful_ ," Yuuko whispers to him the first time he lets her see. "What do they say?"

He twists his shirt in his hands. "For some of them I'm not sure."

"I see 'my katsudon,'" she giggles. "Yuuri! I wish you'd let me see them sooner." He slips his shirt back over his head, even while shaking it gently. Baring your soulmarks in Japan is rude, and could even be dangerous. It's wrong to tempt fate. For a time, he hadn't wanted Yuuko to see—for a time, he'd wanted her to call him _my katsudon_ without knowing it sat delicately between his collarbones. But he'd even heard it, the first time Nishigori had called her _ice princess_ , the first time he'd teased her with _protector of the weak_ and her face had flushed marvelously. The two belonged, from the _darling wife_ that sat on Yuuko's knee to the _stupid softie_ that was plastered to the back of Nishigori's neck. Yuuko's soul marks are all over her arms and legs, but they can't begin to compare to the swathes of them on Yuuri.

His left and right arms are all winding Cyrillic, spotted with the occasional English phrase. Short, surprisingly raunchy French words freckle his upper back, Danish dots his spine, only to sweep into delicate but sloppy kanji on the front of his chest. Mari tries to wipe _Greek_ off of his neck one morning before looking closer and apologizing.

"Isn't Greek a dead language?" She mutters to herself after they find the odd symbols in an old textbook, and Yuuri apologizes and starts wearing turtlenecks. They're warmer on the ice anyways. Mari never mentions soulmarks to him again—and he never mentions them to her, not after seeing _bitch_ carved harshly into her stomach. It's rare, but sometimes soulmates aren't meant to be.

"You're going to be so loved, Yuuri," Yuuko tells him fondly, placing a hand to his covered chest. "There's not a single kanji here that isn't filled with affection. You deserve someone like that." The young man doesn't agree—but he doesn't disagree.

* * *

"Whoa," Phichit says, swiftly covering his eyes after walking in on Yuuri in their room in Detroit one afternoon. "I'm sorry, Yuuri. I swear I didn't see… much."

Yuuri blushes, feels awkward. "It's all right."

"If it makes you feel better," Phichit says, "I have no kanji, so it's probably safe to share with me. I'm definitely not it for you, even if we're meant to be best friends for life. And in what I briefly saw, I don't think you've got any Thai in there."

"Ankle," Yuuri mutters.

"Seriously?" His warm brown gaze flickers down. "Do you want it translated?"

"คนดี," Yuuri tries to say, his tongue tripping over the unfamiliar word. "My good girl, is what I think the dictionary told me? I feel like that must be wrong. Is it a compliment?"

"It means 'my love,'" Phichit tells him, eyes softening, "It's what the King calls the skater. I have it too," he chuckles, lifting one pinky, and Yuuri's heart goes out to him. "It's my favorite." They press their matching soulmarks together, get dressed, and return to the ice rink together, feeling gloriously bound. _They're not just for connecting soulmates,_ Yuuri realizes with warm wonder. _They're for everyone_.

"What's your favorite?" Phichit asks him as they watch The King and the Skater for the third time together later that night.

"I'm not sure," Yuuri admits.

"What's your _least_ favorite?" Phichit presses in amusement, and the Japanese boy covers his eyes in pure embarrassment, flipping up his palm to show the tiny English print on his right heartline. " _Little_ _stripper_! Yuuri, you're a walking scandal! When did you become a stripper? It's so visible, too!"

"I'm _not_ ," Yuuri protests fervently, and watches in abject fear as Phichit reaches for his ever constant companion: his phone. "Phichit, don't, Phichit—"

* * *

"Sorry," Celestino says, "The university wants one of your soulmarks to confirm your identity for paperwork. Can you pick a… less private one? Maybe the one with your name?"

"That's not possible," Yuuri blurts, thinking about where that particular kanji sits. "What requirements does the one I pick have to fulfill?"

"Easily accessible," Celestino muses, "And not something difficult to recognize." Yuuri's head is already spinning; he thinks of his left elbow, the spray of—is it German?—that falls over his knuckles.

"Please just pick for me," he replies in a rush, and offers his left hand.

"How many languages do you _have_ ," is what Celestino chokes out. "Good lord, is that Latin? I'm sorry, Yuuri, but your soulmate is a bit dramatic." He can't even _see_ the embarrassingly long endearment that splays across Yuuri's hip, a combination of kanji and Cyrillic that he only knows belongs together because one doesn't make sense without the other, or the one on the shell of Yuuri's left ear that actually got him scolded by an onsen visitor from India, who insisted _there are children here, young man, cover that_!

"I'm sorry," he murmurs miserably, but suddenly Celestino is smiling.

"I found the one I like." He taps at the top of Yuuri's wrist, where a simple _tesorino_ sits. "That's essentially what I call my wife."

"Does she like it?"

He laughs. "It's on her forehead, so the answer to that is a solid _no_. Headbands used to be her only style—until I called her that for the first time and she slingshot one at me." He pats Yuuri on his right, gloved hand. "You've got an impressive collection. I can't imagine what soulmarks your mate is going to have."

* * *

Viktor has three words, and only three. His name is draped proudly at the back of his neck in beautiful Cyrillic, a soulmark he displays every time he skates. A small collection of lines sits primly above his navel, a complex word that his scandalized and blushing Japanese neighbor staunchly refuses to translate. And finally, engraved into the skin over his heart, sits one English word: _coach_.

That one never fails to amuse him. Who calls their soulmate a _coach_? What could he possibly coach in? When he first began to show immense talent for ice skating, it became clear that it would have to be the sport; but isn't it scandalous, to be in love with your coach? Viktor can't imagine coaching changing his life much, can't imagine himself imparting wisdom with his harshness and loose tongue and forgetful mind.

Then Yuuri Katsuki goes and blows everything to pieces. He's drunk. He's not even speaking in _English_ , though Viktor has to admit the soulmark on his stomach almost _burns_ at the foreign words. But he flings his arms about Viktor and says the dooming sentence: "Be my coach!" No one wants Viktor to retire, not without besting him—no one has ever asked him to coach. Katsuki Yuuri is the first, and Viktor realizes very rapidly that he wants him to be the last. The banquet is maddening—Christophe barely manages to keep the Japanese skater's turtleneck on and his soulmarks preserved, though they still dance together on the pole. Even with just the Japanese skater's gloves removed, Viktor is awarded a generous helping of minutely tattooed skin.

Someone was going to love Yuuri very much—and Viktor already wanted it to be him. But he will wait—he will _hope_ that the drunk skater asks him to coach again, because this time Viktor will respond with a resounding _yes_.

* * *

"Let's look up our marks together!" He cheerfully tells Yuri several months later. "What online dictionary should we use?"

The blond fairy nearly spits at him. "How can you not know what they mean at this point? You're so old!"

"Japanese is a complex language," Viktor scolds gently. He doesn't want to admit that he's being sentimental, that he has always held out that it would be something unbearably beautiful, beautiful enough to make up for the fact that he only has _three words_.

"It's not that difficult," Yuri growls, and Viktor notes with glee that he's got a Japanese translator _bookmarked_.

"So your soulmate is from Japan too, Yuri, is that it?" It's worth the way the delinquent child essentially kicks over a table to get confirmation. What are the odds?

He lifts his shirt and Yuri briefly traces the shape into his phone.

"That's _disgusting_ ," is all the young skater snaps after a few moments. Peering over his short companion's shoulder, he has to disagree. "I would never let anyone call me that!"

"And what does your soulmate call you?"

"Tiger," the blond announces smugly.

"Among other things, I'm sure."

"That's it," Yuri insists dangerously, and Viktor lets him have his privacy.

It _is_ beautiful, he thinks, and fitting. It does not stop the fear that settles in his stomach—what if his soulmate wasn't around long enough to call him other things? The Japanese skater could have died in a plane crash, he could have cracked his head open on the ice (god knows he fell enough), he could be stumbling lost through the dangerous jungles and forests of his homeland.

He voices these dramatizations to Christophe, who huffs daintily and holds out two beautiful fingers. "One, Viktoor, you're not even sure this boy is your soulmate. Two, Japan is nothing like the wilderness that you've described. You should actually visit, no?"

Viktor dismisses the idea of going halfway around the world just to flash the kanji on his stomach to a near stranger and hope they'd want to call him that someday.

Then, there is a video, and it reminds him of the word that is scrawled over his heart— _coach_. Of course it would come to that. Katsuki Yuuri is a skater who has barely entered his prime, and Viktor is a world-renowned champion who needs an excuse to retire. Yuuri had _asked_ him to be his coach again, and that's all it takes to load the plane and fly off.

* * *

" _Clothes_ ," is all his (potential) soulmate can squeak out before he's collapsing to the floor of the springs, hands over his eyes. Viktor has never talked to a quieter man than Yuuri's father, who gives him a dim little smile and mentions in halting English, _we don't show our soulmarks like that here._

Viktor wouldn't normally, either, but he'd wanted to impress. He'd covered up his kanji, hadn't he? Either way, Yuuri's scandalized reaction had prevented him from seeing it. At least the Japanese skater wasn't dead.

Over a warm dinner, he learns more about his (potential) soulmate and desperately tries to think of nicknames for this man. What would he call him? He affectionately thinks of all of the things Russians normally use, but instead the first nickname that falls from his careless mouth is _little piggy_. Not ideal, he supposes, but it will have to do.

Yuuri has no reaction. It's distressing, but many people don't get their hopes up for a soulbond from just one nickname. The Yuuri in front of him seems like a calm man, one who doesn't react to much; even at the banquet, spinning about the pole, his face had been oddly serene. Potentially Viktor just can't read his reactions.

He realizes quickly that it is not hard to read Yuuri's reactions, because most of them are a loud and immediate _what are you doing please no_. There are two things that Yuuri absolutely won't allow: letting him into his room, and joining him in the baths without his clothes.

"Why not?" Viktor pouts. "Everyone wears cover-ups anyway! I won't see the soulmarks."

"They. Are. _Everywhere_ ," is his student's firm reply. "It is never happening."

Time passes, and Viktor almost forgets the soulbond. Being Yuuri's coach is oddly enjoyable, surprisingly close and tender. Though the Japanese skater can be distant, he is never anything but genuine. He panics and is honest and is patiently, affectionately amused by many of Viktor's antics. So Viktor forgets, for a while, at least until after the Hot Springs on Ice competition, when he flings two arms about Yuuri and excitedly tells him, "Excellent job, my katsudon, they loved you!"

The _flush_ that immediately darkens Yuuri's entire body highlights his few visible soulmarks, and they're stumbling apart with a stuttered, " _Viktor_ , please!"

His student won't look his way, even though he knows the champion's gaze is sharp on him.

"What do you call me in _your_ head, Yuuri?" It is quiet and Viktor feels the need to approach in the dim lights of the street. "Yuuri, this is important."

"Nothing too familiar," his student struggles to get out, clutching at his own hands and fidgeting with his glasses. "Nothing… that assumes anything."

 _Say it_ , he urges mentally. _Say it, Yuuri, say one of them. There's only three._

But the awkward silence goes on, and the Japanese skater looks dejected, so finally he links their fingers together and they walk back to the onsen without saying anything at all.

* * *

He says it at the Kyushu championship, right before he goes out on the ice.

"Don't forget what I told you about your leg on that triple," Viktor reminds him at the last moment, and Yuuri just nods, nervously looking back out onto the rink, before he throws the champion his waterbottle and says distractedly,

"Thank you, coach."

Viktor certainly doesn't take his eyes off of him. He tries to stay calm, tries to remember that Yuuri has _hundreds_ of nicknames and he's only confirmed one or two of them. The _coach_ that is carved in him makes him scold Yuuri as he comes out of the performance, makes him not mention it in the locker room, makes him focus on Yuuri's treatment of his excited fan before he dares to think about the topic.

Minami gets the autographs of his two idols, but hangs around after the other boys.

"I've thought this before," he's jabbering, "But we both have Cyrillic, don't we, Yuuri?" The blonde is gesturing wildly at the Japanese skater's arm, which is completely covered. "I saw it once, I'm sorry, last year! And I was just so excited to share something with you."

Yuuri has been so stiff about the soulmarks, so stiff in _general,_ that Viktor expects this conversation to end immediately. He should have known better—he's always, always surprised by this man.

"I wonder if we match," is all Yuuri replies warmly, "Do you want to show me one of them in the locker room?"

Minami can hardly contain himself. _Viktor_ can hardly contain himself.

They're sitting alone in a car on the way back, and his hands grip the steering wheel far too harshly. Yuuri picks soundlessly at the car seat, and feels the tension rise.

"You have Cyrillic?" Viktor asks slowly, breaking it with all of the delicacy he can muster, "You have _Cyrillic_ and you didn't think to mention it to me?"

Yuuri rubs at his knuckles, his neck. "I do. I also have other languages, though."

"So you just have one or two words?" He reaches over at a stoplight, takes a tense and shaking Yuuri's hand, reaches his fingers under the glove. _I already have names for you. Let me see them._

"T-that's not where most of them are."

" _Most_ of them." He levels his gaze at his passenger. " _Most of them_ , Yuuri?"

"Arms," his student is saying in apology, "All over my arms."

"What language do you have the most of?" Viktor insists, innocently demanding, even when Yuuri gestures helplessly out the front window.

"The light is green."

"What language do you have the _most_ of?"

"Russian!" Yuuri confesses in agony, looking like he'd rather throw himself out of the moving car than continue the conversation. "But I swear, Viktor, I'm not—I would never try to—"

"I have kanji," Viktor interrupts him smoothly. He presses down on the gas at last and moves them forwards. "I think my soulmate is Japanese, Yuuri, I'm not sure I ever mentioned that to you."

"You," his student intakes a breath, "You didn't."

Out of the corner of his vision, Viktor watches streetlights dance over Yuuri's eyes. _He's looking for an answer_ , he thinks. So patiently, patiently, he lets his soulmate search.

"I'm not putting any pressure on you," Viktor tells him lowly when they reach home, "I just want you to actually _consider_ it, Yuuri."

The shy man is usually so eager to return to his room alone, but this time he bites at his lip, reaches out for Viktor's sleeve.

"Will you—will you still be my coach, if we are?" He hesitates. "If we're not?"

The world is small for Viktor, the tatami floors, the moonlight streaming in the window, Yuuri's tender eyes locked on his own. Everything falls into this moment—he had thought three words were too few to express love for a soulmate, but he's realizing that coming from Yuuri, those three words are almost too much. There's love encased in them, love and respect and adoration and _hope_.

"Of course." He draws his student in, holds him, presses his lips to the dark hair. "Of course I will be, Yuuri, always." His soulmark burns, and he refuses to let go. They repeat the conversation over and over, as much as Yuuri needs.

_Be my coach until I retire._

_I hope you never retire._

* * *

"What do you call your lovers in French, Christophe?" It's unusual for them to talk on the phone, but the Swiss representative had needed advice on dealing with a new Russian skater at his rink. Christophe had initially been a tad bitter over his defeat at Cup of China, though glad to see Yuuri's entrance to the Grand Prix, and the two top skaters had fallen into idle chatter.

"In or out of bed?"

"Oh, is there a difference?"

When he tries one of his new favorites out on a sweetly blinking Yuuri later that day at Minako's ballet studio, the dance instructor nearly breaks the barre.

"I doubt Yuuri has ever even _thought_ about doing that with his mouth," she hisses to him while the object of Viktor's affections obliviously continues his stretches in the background. "Do you know what you're saying?"

"I didn't, but it has a nice sound to it, no?"

She glowers at him, but finally shakes her head and sighs, "Left shoulderblade."

Viktor's heart skips a beat. "What?"

"I'm not going to repeat myself," she sings, and spins back into practice.

* * *

Viktor perfects the sound that Hiroko uses constantly around Yuuri's father, has Yuuko help him shape it and tone it. One day when Yuuri comes off the ice it slips out, maybe too early, but Viktor wishes he'd tried it _months_ ago because two seconds after it's said his tongue is in Yuuri's mouth and one hand is being led up the inside of a turtleneck to rest hotly against what he's assuming is the written match. Viktor is all too ready to oblige, to explore each other's skin, but when he starts to pull at his shirt Yuuri pulls away.

"We should wait," Yuuri heaves, cheeks pink, "We should wait until I've said—all of them. Just to be sure. _If_ I say all of them."

"Are you saying we can't be together until we've confirmed that we're soulmates?"

"Definitely not what I'm saying," Yuuri answers firmly, and shuts the changing room door.

* * *

"First of all," Yuuko tells him a week later, after one particularly satisfying hour in Ice Castle's changing room, "Besides being just six years old, my girls have no shame and know no boundaries, so I'm going to have to encourage you not to do that kind of thing in public. They will find you. They will post it online."

Viktor wonders briefly if Yuuri would be at all interested in that, but… he doubts it. He opens his mouth to ask a question and Yuuko, shaking her head, slips a finger over it.

" _Yes_ we can hear you. Which brings me to my second point: you should know what Yuuri's saying more than anything else." His student does mostly gasp in his native tongue; Viktor takes his struggle to concentrate and speak English as a compliment. Yuuko produces a pen and scrawls a symbol out onto his hand, but before she's done he already knows how the sweeping lines will fit together.

"Recognize it?" She prods gently, but he already feels his head bowing, his throat surprisingly tight. _Recognize it? It belongs to me._

"He usually doesn't call me that."

"Yuuri's not really the type to say it in public."

"I'm going to make him say nothing else for a week," Viktor promises, and heads straight home.

"моя любовь," he hums as he meets those brown eyes. "мое золото," he says, taking both hands in his. "сладкий," is the breath he presses into Yuuri's clothed shoulder as he leads them back to his room.

"I may have it all over me," Yuuri voices quietly when they're alone, "But I don't speak Russian." Viktor rolls up Yuuri's sleeve, lifts his student's arm to press his lips to it, and mouths another word atop the first swirling text. любимый.

"Let me teach you."


	3. Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm a dog, Yuuri realizes to himself, looking down at his fluffy body, The person my soulmate feels closest to right now… is a dog.  
> Where Yuuri switches bodies with Makkachin for a night and then tries desperately not to lose his mind.  
> Soulmate AU where you temporarily take over the body of the person your soulmate cares about the most and feels closest to.  
> (A one-shot collection of soulmate AUs.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soulmate AU where you temporarily take over the body of the person your soulmate cares about the most and feels closest to. It can happen multiple times after you meet in real life.  
> As always, if you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review or message and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me.

Close

When Yuuri comes to, his whole body feels oddly compressed and close to the ground. Everyone had told him this would happen at some point, but it was another thing to _live_ it, to know he resided in someone else's body, a person that was precious to his soulmate. The person closest to them. Why was someone so precious lying on the ground? He tries to stand, and his nails scrabble on the floor as he trips over his own tail.

 _A dog_ , Yuuri realizes to himself, _The person my soulmate feels closest to right now… is a dog_.

"Makkachin, время отхода ко сну," a familiar voice calls from around the corner, and Yuuri knows he does not like where this is going. _Viktor Nikiforov_ is cooing at him in Russian, ushering his tiny body across the cold wooden floors of the champion skater's home in the motherland. He's only met his idol once a few weeks ago, in the most shameful way he could have anticipated, but meeting your soulmate once was all it took for the body exchanges to start. _Viktor Nikiforov? No, this isn't happening. Please don't figure it out!_ He internally hyperventilates, but it just comes out as puppy panting. _You can be a dog,_ Yuuri encourages himself in a blind panic. _You don't even have to be a different person! You don't even have to talk! You're lucky, really._

Then they're in Viktor's room, after he's tripped over his furry feet more times than he can count, and Yuuri realizes he is _not_ lucky, _oh no_ , because the world champion sleeps mostly in the nude and apparently expects his _dog_ to join him.

"вверх, Makkachin," he is commanding in Russian, patting the bed sweetly. "сопровождать, малютка.

Yuuri decides to bound off around the house instead, which apparently isn't too out of character, because his idol gives laughing chase, exclaiming things in his native tongue and wrassling the dog until Yuuri's small body is too tired to fight anymore. Viktor hauls him to the bed, deposits him into the covers, and murmurs to him in lilting Russian until the gentle strokes on the dog's ears slow and the champion falls asleep. Yuuri lays awake, sees the sleeping features of his on screen idol for the first time, and in the quiet, close serenity of the room, concludes there must be a massive mistake.

Him as the Russian skater's soulmate is insane, for one thing, but this famous man, this successful and brilliant and worshipped man, feels closest to his _dog_? Where are his lovers? Where are his fans? Where is the fabulous Christophe Giacometti? His coach? It seems incomprehensible. He nudges and snuffles at the hand that lays prone upon him, till the ice blue eyes glint again in the moonlight.

"холодно?" The older man questions, voice cloaked in sleep, and only pulls the dog closer. Yuuri feels lips press against his wet nose softly, sees the eyes shutter closed, hears his heart break a little.

 _Someone should love you more than this_ , he thinks, _Though I don't understand why the universe has chosen me. This can't be right._ _What am I meant to do?_ When he wakes the next morning, he goes to the rink and skates.

* * *

He still skates every morning, every afternoon, every night, for the while after that, but nothing is the same, not since the Grand Prix. Home seems the only option, somehow. So Yuuri is headed back to Hasetsu, though packing up his life in Detroit is harder than he had imagined.

Phichit is perched curiously on his bed when Yuuri comes into their apartment for the final box and to roll up the last of his prized Viktor Nikiforov posters. His tan face has the oddest expression, like the room is foreign to him. Yuuri supposes it is; they've never lived in Detroit without each other, and now he is leaving. The Japanese skater is overcome suddenly, and makes his way awkwardly over to his best friend.

"I'm going to miss you." He swallows. "Promise you'll pick up when I Facetime you?"

"Yes," his roommate offers plainly, almond eyes sweeping over Yuuri's face. "Are we…" His voice is low and serious. "Are we lovers?"

Yuuri chuckles. "I know that's your favorite scene from The King and the Skater, Phichit, but it's hardly right for our goodbye." He checks his watch. "Do you want to watch it one last time, is that what you're saying? My plane doesn't take off for another eight hours."

"I would," Phichit agrees frankly. "Let's… do something together."

"All right. One last selfie, then, too." He pulls himself up onto the bed, and reaches for Phichit's laptop. His best friend is awkwardly patting his pants pockets, and Yuuri slips a quick hand in Phichit's jacket and produces the sleek phone. "You'd think that with how much you love this, you'd keep better track of it," he teases. He nudges the Thai skater, holds up the phone. "Smile!"

Phichit is the king of selfies, but he doesn't even look at the resulting image, keeping wide brown eyes trained on Yuuri's face.

"We're very close," he says slowly, softly.

Yuuri's gaze drops, and he thinks he feels _shame_ bloom in his chest. "Yeah," he agrees. "I'm sorry I'm leaving you. But I just… I have to go home…"

"Don't let me spoil things," his roommate interrupts awkwardly. "I'm ruining this for you, I'm sorry. Just… enjoy your last moments with your…"

"Best friend," Yuuri says fiercely. "You will always be my best friend, Phichit. I hope I'm a good enough friend for you to consider me one of yours."

"I'm sure you are," he asserts with a peculiar half smile. Yuuri moves towards him, but his usually waving arms are oddly static, till the Thai skater starts suddenly and is hugging him back like they haven't already done it a million times before. They pull apart and Yuuri hurriedly brushes off tears.

"Sorry. You know how easily I cry."

"Let's watch the movie," Phichit replies with an unsteady, unsure smile. The boys situate themselves around the laptop, and the introduction has barely started when he feels the Thai skater staring at him.

"Yeah?"

"Can I…" his eyes are darting and Yuuri pushes up his glasses, unsure. "Can I put my head on your shoulder?"

"You don't even have to ask," the Japanese man laughs in return. "Why couldn't you?" His best friend leans over slowly, not even putting down his full weight, and Yuuri flicks him affectionately on the forehead, a habit he developed directly from the Thai skater himself. "I thought I was the shy one." That gets no reply, but the other boy settles in further.

It's the first time he's ever seen Phichit fall asleep in the middle of his favorite movie, but their last few hours together had certainly been strange, if not meaningful. When Yuuri jostles him awake for one last farewell before he heads off to the airport, Phichit moans and groans and flings his arms around his roommate, and has already tweeted him three times before his plane takes off.

* * *

Seeing Viktor Nikiforov in his onsen is the last thing that Yuuri expects. His anxious mind has already played for him the worst possible scenario: that Viktor somehow _knows_ he became his dog and is here to shame him, to reject him. It's almost as terrifying as the reality: Viktor saw him skate and traveled halfway across the world to coach him.

"Tell me everything about you," the Russian skater is urging him sensuously, fingers on his wrist, his chin, backing him up against the unpacked boxes in his new room at Yu-topia. Yuuri is shrieking and halfway out of the room before the champion skater can go any further. "What? Why are you running away?"

Their following encounters are equally heart stopping and panic inducing. Yuuri has _no idea_ why Viktor thinks it's all right to chase him down and tackle him with blankets the night after he refuses to have a sleepover in his childhood bedroom, why he's so comfortable with pressing up so _close_ , why he insists on looping their arms together on the train on the way home from practice. Yuuri is always startling away, but Viktor pays it no attention, almost seems to double his efforts the more distant the Japanese skater tries to be. The audience doesn't even matter—at the Kyushu competition, he snags Yuuri in a hug before the frenzied media cameras and doesn't let go.

It's uncomfortable. It's exciting. It's terrible. It's the best thing that's ever happened to him.

Yuuri's not sure how to react, so he tries to calm himself and let it happen, let Viktor be his eclectic self, let this be their… friendship. It's certainly not merely a coach-student bond anymore.

A few days before they leave for the Cup of China, Yuuri brings him noodles after practice and suggests they watch a classic Japanese film together. They've settled in on Viktor's bed, with his fingers dancing lightly over Yuuri's knee, when the Russian skater tips over and nestles into his shoulder. It hardly takes any time for Yuuri to talk himself down from the panic anymore, and he just bounces the shoulder gently beneath the weight before feeling the need to voice something, anything: "I'm not Makkachin, you know." _Of course_ , he thinks, _Of course that's what my lips would say. I may as well confess the whole embarrassing story._

He feels his shoulders stiffen, his tongue tangle within his own mouth. Viktor is quiet for a moment, and then there is a blithe, "Do you not like me, Yuuri?"

"What?"

There's no hesitation, just flawlessly devastating execution in the way he repeats it. "Do you not like me, Yuuri?"

"Of course I do. Like you, I mean. You know that I—that I do." _More than I should_. The words come out in an unconvincing jumble. The heart shaped mouth is curling into a lazy smile.

"Sometimes," he says, "You don't much act it. I know that's not true—but it's something to practice, yes?"

Subdued, Yuuri bobs his head in embarrassed agreement. Relationships are a give and take, he knows that, he's been taught that so many times. A peace offering, that's what he needs, and Viktor has always wanted to know everything about him, so before he can think he's blurting, "Let's talk about personal things."

Viktor sits up immediately, eyes shining. "Really?"

"Y-yeah. Whatever you'd like."

"Have you had an exchange yet, Yuuri?" The skater asks innocently, because Viktor has never been one to shy away from taking action, and the younger whips his head around far too quickly to be natural.

" _No!_ No way. Definitely, definitely not." _I am not obsessed with you. I am not ridiculously jealous of your dog. I do not want to be your dog_. The idea of admitting that he's already basically slept with the Russian is not something he's ready to reveal.

He's a terrible liar, he knows, but Viktor just looks at him with bright blue eyes and a tilted head for a few moments.

"All right then," Viktor relents, sighing. "That's too bad."

The question is there, and Yuuri has to take it or forever hate himself. "Have you?"

His idol purses thin lips. " _Da_."

Yuuri blanches, trying to recover as calmly as possible. _There's a chance that he didn't actually see me. He could have switched with someone while I wasn't there, it's not unheard of_.

But all the nervous part of his mind can summon is: _Viktor knows, and he's not pleased._

"And you—met your soulmate."

Viktor's fingers stop dancing on his knee, and he presents a blinding smile. " _Da_." The smile rattles the Japanese skater's brain. Yuuri wants to ask him more, talk until his face turns blue, ask him if this is _okay_ , but Viktor is already speaking again, fingertip settled on his chin. "What would you do, Yuuri, if you never had an exchange?"

He looks to the corner of the tiny room. "Ah. Probably… assume I didn't have a soulmate."

"Do you want a soulmate, Yuuri?"

He swallows. "I want one. But I understand that sometimes… the universe doesn't pick correctly. And I don't think soulmates should be obligated to be together." _You don't have to be with me. Is that why you're here?_

"Really," Viktor replies carefully, flatly. "Do you think the universe might not be kind to you?"

_I think the universe listened to me obsessing over you for the last ten years and made you my soulmate as a cruel joke._

"Was the universe kind to you?" He fires back in self preservation, and regrets it almost immediately.

"It's put me in an unfortunate situation with my soulmate. Other than that, the universe has been very generous." Gold medals. Women. Fame. Looks. Talent, so much talent, and the drive to use it. Even after that, the champion had so much more: blunt kindness and careless charisma, a rumbling laugh, a quirky sense of humor, a terrible taste in movies. Yes, the universe had been generous to Viktor Nikiforov; a kind of compensation, he supposed, for being bonded to Katsuki Yuuri, anxiety ridden and underwhelming in his skating abilities.

It takes everything in the Japanese man to say, "Maybe you should forget about your soulmate." _Leave if you want. Don't ruin everything you have._

_Don't ruin me by staying before you go._

Viktor looks at him long and hard—there's a sharpness to it. "You've never had an exchange, Yuuri?" The student doesn't answer, just looks desperately down to the coverlets. Acknowledging that he knows, acknowledging that they are soulmates, means giving over every part of himself to this man: his skating, his career, his home, his heart, his bond. Having the following conversation would mean hearing the rejection, forcing himself to live in reality. Yuuri is rarely one to start a conversation. His idol wants to be his coach, at least for the year, and he will take anything he can get. Then, quietly, he hears the words, "Are you saying I should choose you instead?"

Yuuri bursts.

"I'm saying that nothing's keeping you here!" He doesn't want his traitorous lips to say the word _yes_ , so after a moment he starts babbling, a sad mixture of Japanese and English, but mostly what comes out is just _why are you still here? What do you want from me?_

Viktor lets him say it all, watches the tears form in his eyes that he refuses to let fall, and all the Russian replies with is a firm, "I want you to skate. Beautifully. Like I know you can, like your body is the music."

"Okay," Yuuri is saying, shakily, "Okay." Because skating is all he has ever known how to do; it's the best way to express himself. Finally, he starts to shuffle off the bed, close the laptop, but those fingers on his knee start circling again.

"You can stay here." Yuuri stares, opens his mouth for the rejection, but Viktor adds, "I want that from you too. If you're open to it."

Unfortunate. Viktor thinks their bond is _unfortunate_. But he's still willing to try.

Yuuri had thought they were like minded, at least in that they would accept nothing less than the best, wanted gold in the rink and out.

"I'm going to bed."

Just like the first time they met, Viktor watches him leave.

In the morning Yuuri rises and skates, and vows to be better. Viktor won't leave him. That doesn't make him _worthy_.

* * *

He gets silver at the Cup of China, and Viktor seems more than thrilled. He kissed him, afterwards, in front of everyone. _I'm getting better_ , Yuuri thinks.

"I wouldn't say today went as I'd planned," Viktor is saying, his voice tinged with a brusque regret, when they return to the hotel. Yuuri agrees—he'd wanted the gold, even if he believed that Phichit had earned it. "That's my fault, I know."

"It's mine," Yuuri insists stubbornly, "I should've practiced the flip more for my free skate."

Viktor laughs after a moment, tilting his head in a question. "And about what happened after the free skate?"

Yuuri flushes, considering. _Better than what I deserved._

"I enjoyed it," he hedges.

"Me too," Viktor replies simply, with warmth, and after Yuuri's showered he comes back to find the Russian skater curled up in covers on one side of Yuuri's bed. He rolls over jovially when Yuuri presses into the mattress beside him, flashes a grin that makes his student melt. "Can we talk? I understand that this might be confusing for you."

"Do you want sex?" Yuuri asks, and maybe it's too blunt because he's exhausted, but Viktor just stares at him from his pillow, silver fringe pooling under his face. It's the explanation Yuuri has come to, after months of Viktor being all over him, despite the way he knows the older skater feels. Maybe it's been difficult, in a world where soulmates are so revered, to find someone willing to consistently give him that without other things getting in the way.

Viktor's response is high and calm and dangerous. "I just want to be close."

His idol can be vague and careless and tends to keep most of his schemes to himself until the results he's wanted are achieved—Yuuri's never admired someone as much as him, and he's never been so afraid. He reaches out, and Viktor's face is real beneath his palm, warm.

"Who are you closest to?" Yuuri asks hazily, because it's been on his mind ever since he spent a night in Makkachin's body. _Who are you really closest to?_ Those blue eyes are on him, unending.

"You," is the soft reply in the dark.

Yuuri is already crying before he surges forward to kiss Viktor, crying because if it isn't true he's going to be broken but if it is true his heart is breaking for the man before him. Crying because since Viktor arrived in Japan and became his coach Yuuri's never exchanged again, not once, has stayed in his own body like that was the closest his soul could be.

 _I'm sorry_ , he says with his lips, _I'm sorry_. He doesn't know what he's apologizing for.

Viktor's palm is pressing hard on his chest and he's murmuring things in Russian, then in broken Japanese, _stop, Yuuri, stop_ and all Yuuri can think is _it's only been months, nothing should be so hard._

"We're soulmates," the Russian finally manages, panting gently, "I exchanged last year. Do you believe me?"

"I spent a night as Makkachin," Yuuri confesses.

Viktor's expression is the closest Yuuri has seen him to fear. "You can _do_ that? With a dog?" Then, choked, "After I came to Japan? Which night?"

"Not one where you brought a lover home," the Japanese skater replies, swatting at him.

"That's _not_ the problem," Viktor assures him, and Yuuri rolls his eyes because he can't think of another problem, but Viktor shifts smoothly to his back, hands to his face in exhaustion. "I thought I would have to convince you; I thought you'd never exchange, I thought the universe was laughing at me for hoping. Бог на небесах. And you never told me because…?"

"It was embarrassing," Yuuri breathes. "And I thought…" Viktor waits for him to finish, but not long enough to draw out the answer.

"You gave me _wrinkles_ ," Viktor complains promptly after the pause, "I _agonized_ over you."

"Just a few months ago you thought being my soulmate was _unfortunate_." He feels almost wrong for bringing it up, like it will break the spell of the day, like it will remind Viktor that he's just a silver medalist for now, like it will make him regret everything. "You can't have that many wrinkles."

Viktor takes Yuuri's cheek in his long fingers, presses their foreheads together, is almost harsh when he sighs coolly, "Never. I have never thought that, Yuuri."

Yuuri shifts uncomfortably against the sheets, hopes Viktor can't feel the heat rising in his skin. "So when you exchanged, you weren't disappointed?"

"Disappointed." Viktor laughs, smothers it in a pillow, leaves his face there so Yuuri can barely hear the next question. "Would it change your opinion of me, to know that I woke up in my own body and cried on Makkachin?" Yuuri's heart plummets, and he thinks he's going to cry at that revelation too until Viktor props himself up on his elbows and fiercely says, "Not like that, Yuuri. It was just… tender. More than I'd expected. My heart wasn't ready."

"When did you exchange? With who?" Yuuri questions, morbidly curious, but Viktor pulls a sheet up over the Japanese skater's face.

"Bedtime, now. We have to wake up in the morning."

"I want to know," Yuuri insists eagerly, struggling to see his mentor's face, but suddenly there are more covers and he's in a cocoon and a warm weight is pressing on him. "Viktor!" Even in the darkness, wrapped in layers, he hears the next words from the Russian's mouth too clearly.

"I'm fully aware that I sleep in the nude at home, Yuuri, and that Makkachin sleeps right next to me." A breath. "But you already knew that, didn't you?" He's so grateful that Viktor can't see his face, hopes desperately that the bedding muffles his squeak. "Bedtime, then."

"Yes," Yuuri agrees meekly.

* * *

The next morning, Viktor kisses him again in front of the bathroom mirror after they've brushed their teeth, like it's going to be happening every day. The mint is sweet shock on their breaths.

"Oh," Yuuri says, and Viktor rubs their noses together cheerfully.

"Mm hmm." Then they kiss some more, and the two are _very_ close.

They manage to make their flight with time to spare anyways, and settle in the airport with their things, though when Yuuri sees Phichit at a nearby terminal Viktor brushes him towards his best friend with a wave of his hand, smile growing underneath his designer sunglasses.

"Congrats again, Phichit," he tells him, and they talk for a while before his old roommate suddenly comes in close and whispers, scandalized,

"Is that a _hickey_?" Yuuri can't even answer him, but Phichit is already going off. "I know you two kissed, Yuuri, but wow. Congratulations to _you_. Can I tweet the hickey? Are you happy? If he leaves you when he finds his soulmate I'll skate over his fingers."

"Oh, that's not a problem," Yuuri is reassuring before he can think, spinning in the onslaught.

" _You two_ are it?" The Japanese skater shares his surprise. "Wait, _Viktor Nikiforov_ was in my body? No wonder I got gold this year—if he left one ounce of his talent in me I would've had to win."

"He exchanged with you?" Yuuri blurts.

"Oh, yeah. Right before you left Detroit, though I just knew it'd happened, not who it was. I assumed you two talked? It's hard to know, when you get shoved to the back of your own mind, I wasn't really conscious."

Yuuri is already staring back over to his soulmate, who pulls down his shades and _winks_. As if that wasn't enough, he lifts the hand not holding his phone in a half heart, blows a kiss through it.

"Oh my god," Yuuri moans. "He saw the posters."

* * *

"What's it like, being a dog?"

Yuuri shoves him and he spins back on the ice, laughing. He pulls Yuuri with him, and they leave beautiful shining trails as they dance at Ice Castle. Yuuri hadn't gotten the gold; it hadn't mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of love I've gotten for this fic is beyond my own comprehension. Thanks so much for all of your support and kind words!


	4. Little Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My idol can be an arrogant bastard," his arm reads in kanji, and five-time-champion Viktor Nikiforov has to agree. The skater doesn't know how he's meant to overcome this.  
> Soulmate AU where your soulmate's first thoughts upon meeting you are written on your arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a soulmate AU where your soulmate's first thoughts upon meeting you are written on your arm.  
> Hello friends. Yuri on Ice season one is over and so is Christmas. I'm crying. It's fine. TRIGGER WARNING: Sad Viktor Nikiforov.  
> If you have an idea/request for a soulmate AU, please let me know through comment or message and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me.

Little Thoughts

Viktor's parents had translated the kanji on his arm long before he could even read, and they refused to tell him what it said. When he was nine and managed to get on the frustratingly slow computer at the school library with the help of his teacher, he struggled with the translation for over two hours before finally managing it. A rumor always floats around that soulmarks are the first words soulmates speak to each other—and for some particularly verbal people, it is—but it's the first thought, and even at nine Viktor knew this.

_My idol can be an arrogant bastard._

It hadn't made sense, at the time—he was good at ice skating already, but he wasn't a champion. Then, there was Yakov, and when he was 15 and winning all there was to win at his age, he saw the first poster of himself on sale at a tacky Russian souvenir store and realized what the words could mean.

_My idol can be an arrogant bastard._

So he rejects it. Viktor smiles brighter, meets reporters at restaurants, invites his rink mates over to his house, dates a fan or two that declares themselves to be desperately in love. He is smooth, suave, and wide open in a way that only an inexperienced celebrity can be. Then. The reporters write about scandals, even the ones who texted him and came to his parties, drank the wine that a teenager shouldn't have. The fans expect him to be as regal and effortless off the ice as he is on it, are almost disappointed when he tries to drag them out shopping, fawns and squeals over Makkachin, is needily physical, so he bluntly and awkwardly breaks up with them at the end of the off seasons. He tries so very hard not to be arrogant.

The worst happens in his safe space, though. His rink mates whisper and stop when he opens the locker room door, snicker or stare in too much shock when he falls to the ice during particularly difficult moves. Yakov alone helps him up, gruffly. Yakov says nothing when his young protégé withdraws, when he comes to practice with red eyes and stained breath.

"You're too young to be drinking every day," is all his coach warns, so Viktor limits himself to the weekends and the older man no longer complains. Yakov shows him a picture when he is eighteen and drowning, an old and worn thing in black and white. "This is my twenty-fourth birthday. I was celebrating my third gold medal."

"Who's in the photo?"

"Lillia." He jabs gently at the timelessly beautiful young woman, hair in a signature tight bun. Then his fingers trace the face of the man beside him. "My best friend. Abram. My mother took the picture." The three of them are cramped in what is clearly a tiny bachelor's apartment, complete with a ratty couch.

"Did the country not throw their old skating hero a victory party?" Viktor laughs, eager to take in the deep but youthful scowl his coach used to sport.

"They did," Yakov replies, briefly. He stares purposely at the skater he is beginning to consider a second son. "I didn't go." The Russian pauses, waits.

But Viktor is young. The screams are still an elusive high to him, the ice still fresh and unchipped. Hope still brightens his eyes, and loneliness hasn't quite settled in his bones. So instead of understanding, the younger man cheerfully asks, "Why ever not?" Yakov refuses to answer, and instead waits.

 _I will not be an arrogant bastard_ , he tells himself as smiles at a reporter who he knows will record his every word and then twist them.

 _I will not be an arrogant bastard_ , he tells himself as he writes shorter and shorter responses to his stack of fan mail.

 _I will not be an arrogant bastard_ , he tells himself when his first love, a young German man who adores the idea of him, sees the kanji on his arm and hesitates on their way to bed but goes anyway because, well, living legend Nikiforov.

But Viktor is young.

Then Viktor is old.

 _My idol can be an arrogant bastard_ , his arm reads in kanji, and at 27 he agrees with those words wholeheartedly. He doesn't know how to stress over it; doesn't know if he _should_. No one challenges him. No one questions him. He can simultaneously get away with everything and nothing. His life is on display—everyone wants to know him, everything about him, but also expect him to keep parts of Viktor Nikiforov buried. A woman? A man? He can get _anyone_ in his bed, but there is hell to pay from the press and Yakov. The faces of some of his many competitors begin to blur; he makes so many promises, silent and aloud, that it's impossible to keep track of all of them.

"A commemorative photo?" Viktor shows all of his perfect teeth. His lips spread thin over them. It aches. For the first time in a long time, he briefly acknowledges that it does. Maybe the pain shows, because the fan turns and leaves.

"And that would be a fellow competitor," Yakov grumbles after the boy silently speeds away. Aside from the scruffy clothes and scratched glasses, the champion admits he should've noticed the official lanyard and pass, the suitcase with his gear. Viktor almost feels bad. Bad enough to subtly Google him in the silent ride to the banquet, to remember his name. But surely he'll be forgiven. No one stays angry or damaged by Viktor for long; they just fall back a safe distance and admire him from afar. Surely.

* * *

Viktor is not forgiven. The sixth place skater approaches him, glowing with champagne and _anger_.

"Listen," Viktor tries to start—is it an apology? Katsuki swats it away with a loose hand in the air.

"No, you listen," he says sloppily, and grabs Viktor's expensive collar. Yuri looks ready to begin a brawl. The rest of the elegant banquet hall isn't paying attention yet. "My name is Katsuki Yuuri."

"I know, I—"

"Hush," the other skater hums, a warm finger on his lips, which feel dry suddenly. "Hush. You talk all the time on TV and I can't talk back. My turn."

"Okay," Viktor agrees dumbly.

"Everybody always _tol_ ' me… that you'd end up being a… a-" he breaks off into several sharp syllables of Japanese that have Yuri's hackles rising, because he knows curse words in every language "-and I told them _no_. Look at him. He's _beautiful_ and he loves _poodles_ and one time in an interview he happily told off some reporter who only wanted to talk about jumps and not artistry, and another time they tried to get him to denounce a fellow skater for kissing another woman and he supported her and basically came out and _nobody_ paid any… attention." Viktor was nineteen. His PR manager had panicked, made him date a French supermodel for a month, forbidden him from all the social media that existed at that time. He hadn't needed to. Russia had ignored it entirely, desperately. Yakov remained bitterly silent throughout.

"That's true," Viktor agrees again, quietly, tries to get his mouth working, but silky words are being said _far_ too close to his ear.

"Secret time," the Japanese skater whispers.

"I thought we were already having secret time," he whispers back.

"I was ssstupid," his breath tickles, sends shivers down Viktor's spine, "To think that you'd even look at me. Know who I was. You're my idol and I'm just some… fan." Katsuki is angry at himself, the champion realizes.

"You're very memorable now," Viktor replies honestly.

"I'm _the best fan_." His eyes are in some kind of hazy, alcohol induced trance. They snap to a clarity as he pulls back to lock gazes with Viktor. "And you are an arrogant bastard." Viktor winces and Katsuki shakes his dark head. "Arrogant bastard." The words are surprisingly fond. "You _knew_ that."

"How can I make it up to you?"

"Don't _encourage_ him," Yuri hisses at his side in Russian, looking ready to stalk off. But Viktor is already willing to sign a hundred posters, kiss him or bed him, let him drunkenly piss on the gold medal, if he'd like. The intoxicated honesty is refreshing, addictive, easily enough to make tonight more exciting than the blur of the last five years.

At the interruption, Katsuki swivels his head, lays his sparkling eyes on the blond boy.

"Dance off," he murmurs softly, reverently, before exploding. "Dance off!" He scrambles away from Viktor, stopping only once during the pulling of a flabbergasted and infuriated Yuri Plisetsky to the middle of the banquet hall. "You'll dance with me too!" He shouts, seconds away from falling to the floor and starting a breakdance routine, "That's how you make it up to me!"

Mere minutes later, though it feels like hours, Yuuri dips him and he's seeing stars. He's laughing, and Yuuri is laughing, and he is an arrogant bastard but he feels ashamed of it, now, in a different way from when he was a child. How many skaters had he missed, that would know him like this? How many fans had actually been watching? He knows he's inspired people, or at least that's what the reporters always tell him before they shove a microphone down his throat, but it had all seemed so casual and slickly easy.

Some time later, they are pressed flush together. Yuuri somehow got ahold of even _more_ alcohol, or at least that's all his slurred Japanese is communicating to Viktor, but the last message is abundantly clear.

"Be my coach!"

Forget tonight. He wants tomorrow, and the day after, and even after Celestino apologizes and drags Yuuri away from the banquet hall his mind won't focus on near anything else. He channels it into skating, starts formulating an incredibly embarrassing short program in the back of his mind. Skaters usually hang out before competitions (or so Viktor's heard, he's not actually participated in years—except for parties with Chris, who he now feels more grateful for). He can snag his obsession and parade him about a sparkling foreign city the next time they compete, seduce him properly.

Mila has a discussion with him after the first competition where Yuuri is mysteriously absent.

"Perhaps it's better this way," she says calmly as he dramatically lies prone on one of the stands an hour after practice lets out. "After all, even though I'm not a huge fan of soulmates, you never know when yours might appear, and if you're single it'll be easier."

Viktor's had his soulmark meaning memorized for years. He's almost forgotten the shape. Or perhaps he's avoided looking at it, as though that would prevent the words from being true, like that would make them a mistake.

Make up a mistake to Yuuri with a _dance_? Yuuri should be the one apologizing; he's the one who has wrecked Viktor's world and then stumbled out of it.

Kanji. The soulmarks are in kanji.

 _Arrogant bastard_ , the Japanese skater had called him. _You're my idol and I'm just some… fan_.

"Besides," Mila finishes, brutal yet well intentioned, "You always forget things. I'm sure you'll forget him too."

 _Oh_ , Viktor thinks, dazedly. Everything starts clicking into place. _I'm not so sure._

* * *

He comes on a bit strong.

"Come out to dinner with me!"

"I'm not hungry."

"Let's sleep together!"

Door slam.

"Show me your soulmarks!"

" _Viktor_ ," the younger man hisses, and protectively presses a palm to his cover-up as though Viktor's about to peel it off. He's correct, of course. A pouting Viktor ends up rubbing his cheek into Yuuri's shoulder as he hyperventilates, and it gets no farther than that.

But weeks pass, and Yuuri is interrupting him in the night and laying with him in the onsen, telling him to be himself no matter who that is, even if it's someone who doesn't match the Russian idea of glamour and fame, even if it's someone who isn't the best at being a coach. One day when Viktor jokingly prods that they should sleep together, Yuuri only goes mildly pink. He doesn't disagree. He just passes by Viktor's door slowly that evening, and lets himself be caught.

They're lying there, Viktor babbling eagerly about some strange snack he'd seen at the corner store, when he finds Yuuri's eyes on his covered forearm.

"You want to see?"

"N-no!"

"You'd understand it," he encourages, "It's in Japanese."

Yuuri just rapidly rolls over, and Viktor pokes him with a pale finger.

"Then you'd ask to see mine," he hears quietly in the dim room, and he smiles. "That's too… much."

"Why?" He half pleads, half whines. Yuuri is the gentle kind of stern, a stunning contrast to Yakov, and he just buries his face in tan hands before mumbling.

"It's embarrassing."

"It's not even your thought, Yuuri." His poking has altered to calming figure eights on his student's back.

"But it says so much about me," the other man confesses, and Viktor feels a pang in his heart. Yuuri's soulmate had known him so instantly? His own first thought of Yuuri must have been abysmal, meaningless; maybe they aren't soulmates, though Viktor is ready to fight for this man. His skater is still speaking, however. "It took a long time, to come in fully. It wasn't solid until recently." Viktor's had been immediate, immutable, at a young age.

"Would I understand it, if I saw?"

" _Oh_ ," Yuuri's breath comes out in a rush. "Oh, um, yes."

English or Russian, then. The champion has never been one for hesitation or second guessing, and this seems like more than proof enough. Viktor reminds himself to move slowly. His arms wrap around Yuuri's waist, drag him back to fit in the hollow of his body, and the shorter man stiffens but puts one hand atop Viktor's, moves his thumb in silent circles.

Viktor is proud of himself for moving slowly, proud of Yuuri for not running. Grateful, he presses a kiss into his student's neck as a reward for both of them.

A gasp, and Yuuri is careening off towards the door, and Viktor has to admit he needs to practice patience.

Yuuri is a hard man to read. Viktor wishes he had more than Yuuri's first thought written on his arm, wishes he had all of them, from the frantic worries to the thoughts he _knows_ cannot be innocent during the short program. While their relationship changes, his soulmarks never will. They're just a jumping off point, a reminder of who he used to be before Yuuri, and Viktor never wants to go back.

* * *

Yuuri's soulmarks are, of course, a constant source of anxiety. Only the first half had bloomed softly on his forearm when he was twelve, just a delicate and devastating _something must be wrong with him—_.

Yuuri had to agree. _What,_ exactly, was wrong with him was the only question on his mind. What part of him would his soulmate see? He practices spins and jumps until his toes are numb, tries hard to make sure that _something_ is something off of the ice. He will never fix himself off the ice, but he can try to be perfect on it.

That his soulmarks are in Cyrillic is both his most secret excitement and his worst agony. It could be Viktor Nikiforov, and he clings to that thought for years, clings through harsh practice days and throws the thought roughly to the ground during rough panicked nights. He knows it can't be, won't be, he _hates himself_ for hoping.

Sometime after he qualifies for his first GPF, it comes in fully. Yuuri is always slow to grow.

_Something must be wrong with him—or is it me, can he tell?_

The anxiety doesn't abate, but now the soulmark feels tender. The first half isn't an insult, just a buildup to a realization. It's fleeting and jumbled and he is entirely unsure how he will ever know that someone he's just met has thought it. Many people give up hope of ever being _sure_ of who their soulmates are, settling for lines that make sense, settling with the soul that has found them.

Other people have their anxieties and weaknesses too, he learns at twenty-three, even his idol.

"I don't know how to handle crying," Viktor tells him with a hand to his face. _You don't know how to handle much_ , Yuuri thinks bitterly, but despite that he loves him, loves him in his failures and his struggle to deal with them and his willingness to try. He loves the stupid mouth that never says what it means outright, a habit he suspects was developed partially so Viktor could better tease Yakov and partially so he could say whatever he liked to the press.

He loves kissing that stupid mouth, too, loves that after the Cup of China kiss his coach waits for him to initiate the next, doesn't pressure him even though it takes Yuuri almost a week. Practice has been long, his hands raw from catching himself, and when he steps off the ice to an affectionately scathing lecture he has finally built up the courage to use his added height to reach up and firmly press their lips together.

Viktor beams, tilts his head into a characteristic _I'm-going-to-destroy-you-so-pay-attention_ position. "Was this really so distracting that your jumps and performance had to be awful the last few days?"

"Maybe," Yuuri chokes out, and his coach wraps two arms around him, cuddles him close as he continues to scold.

"Don't be ridiculous. You know I'm yours. I thought I'd made that perfectly clear."

"Mm," Yuuri says from Viktor's sleeve.

"Well, maybe not to Russia. Maybe I'll use tongue in Russia when you get gold there."

"I'm pretty sure that the Professional Skaters Association would send you another cease and desist letter," the younger skater moans. He tries very hard not to imagine what will happen in Russia.

"I hope this one is written in fancier font. The last one doesn't look proper, sitting in your award case with your medal."

"It's in my _award case_?"

* * *

Viktor cries beautifully. He reaches a hand up to peer beneath the silver bangs, utterly floored. Viktor slaps his hand away, talks and cries, cries and presses him to the bed.

"I know I'm an arrogant bastard," he is huffing shakily, "But you still wanted me—and I am trying, Yuuri. You can't _also_ be an arrogant bastard that selfishly does whatever he wants."

Yuuri thinks of the Cyrillic on his arm as Viktor's tears fall on it, knows they are both insecure and stressed and that the GPF is the most emotional thing either of them has been through, Viktor watching the world spin without him and Yuuri wanting to close his eyes and pretend that he can step out of that world before it crashes, spinning and burning.

"Don't leave," Viktor pleads quietly. "I can still help you."

Russia's star always pushes. Always insists. Casually maneuvers until things go his way. That doesn't make him infallible; it doesn't make him confident. _It's me_ , he finally hears Viktor saying, _Is it me?_

"It's not you," he assures gently, feeling affection surge painfully in him. He cards his hand through the silver hair, "I just—we were brought together, Viktor, and you've given me so much. I just…"

Viktor's head raises up with determination.

"We're _soulmates_ ," he snaps lowly, and Yuuri is sobbing too, even as the champion rubs at the edges of the younger man's eyes a little too roughly.

"I know," he cries, "I know. That doesn't have to mean that I'm everything for you. I know how much you love skating, how much you've sacrificed for it. How much you sacrificed for me. I have to find my way without you, too, that's part of coming into myself. So make your decision, and I'll make mine, and we don't control each other. I just want you to be Viktor, always, and if that leaves room for me someday nothing would make me happier."

"Fine," Viktor says fiercely, "Fine."

He agrees to Yuuri's conditions, and wishes he was arrogant enough to try to change his mind with his body, to force Yuuri to stay. Instead he buries his face in his soulmate's shoulder and cries elegantly, softly, waits until his fiance's heartbeat has lulled into slow sleep before he presses feather-light kisses everywhere, claiming him.

He's too frustrated to admit it, but he knows that Yuuri is right, and that they will still be together.

* * *

His husband lets him see the soulmark on their wedding night.

"That's surprisingly humble," Viktor chuckles. Especially considering what you were thinking about _me_ at that moment."

"Oh no."

"It's all right." The older man, satisfied, gives him a teasing kiss on the cheek. "It was true, at the time. _But_ —" he perfectly lifts his leg from the mattress, points a toe up at the ceiling "—me being an arrogant bastard did get us this gorgeous house in St. Petersburg."

"I didn't call you that," Yuuri breathes out, "I _didn't_."

"Not out loud," Viktor agrees jovially, "Not until later, anyway."

"No no no no _no_." He buries his face in his hands, but he curls into Viktor anyway. "The banquet?"

"The banquet."

"Why does it always come back to that?"

"It will _always_ come back to when I first fell in love with you." He ruffles Yuuri's hair, whispers into it. "You know, you're surprisingly brash in your head. It makes me wonder what else you're thinking of. What kind of _ideas_ you have. What other… rude things you call me."

Yuuri is embarrassed, bright red, but he handles it differently now that they're married, now that they're rivals on the ice. "You'd like to know, wouldn't you?"

"Yes please," Viktor replies quietly. His husband already has gentle, worshipping hands all over.

"I'll make you say yours first," Yuuri promises.

"I love you," Viktor moans, cries, whispers, over and over. They're promises too, ones he will always put before everything else.

Yuuri keeps his few promises, understands now what they mean. Viktor, arrogant as he is, just keeps as many of them as he can. They are perfect in that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viktor: Play it cool. Don't come on too strong  
> Yuuri: What, Vi-  
> Viktor: *rips off clothes* HELLO YUURI  
> Heeeey everybody. As always, thank you for your love. You are all saying such supportive things and it cheers me on! I've got one more chapter already written, and then unfortunately updates might slow a bit. My apologies, but I figured I should warn you.  
> Midnightdreams33 over on FFN suggested this AU idea, and has my appreciation!


	5. Foolish Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I dreamed about this," Viktor says hesitantly. "About gravely disrespecting one of the few people whom you can consider a peer? How often could you possibly dream about that?" Almost every night... because that man is his soulmate.  
> (A collection of soulmate AUs. 5: where you experience your first meeting with your soulmate repeatedly in your dreams, albeit in odd ways.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU where you experience your first meeting with your soulmate repeatedly in your dreams, albeit in odd ways.  
> As always, if you have an idea/request for a soulmate AU, please let me know through comment and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me.

Foolish Dreams

Viktor's daily life is full of the same things, the same colors, the same scents. There is the frozen blue scraping of the rink, the minimal sleekness of his home, the fluffy chocolate that is Makkachin. His dreams, on the other hand, never keep the same scene. Just the same theme, the same terrible moral to the story.

He is a crown prince in a foreign land, dressed in mahogany finery, awaiting the arrival of the neighboring royalty of his six-state nation. The preparations have been intense; Advisor Yakov will not stop fussing over paperwork and the steadiness of his sword arm. His cousin and next in line, Yuri, has been particularly immature and strained, his youthful head weighed down by the crown. Confinement to the castle will be all he knows for the next few weeks, so Viktor goes for one last ride on his beloved chestnut mare, Makkachin.

He is affectionately rubbing her down when he hears soft murmuring from the next stall over, first spots the beautiful, if slightly small, stallion that has not quite settled into its new surroundings. Some of his visitors must have arrived early; Yakov will be spitting fire that he hasn't returned yet. With a final pat to Makkachin, the prince exits her stall and pokes his silver head into the open neighboring space easily. The redhead startles to his feet, turns, locks warm brown eyes on his own. His clothes are muddy, rumpled, and clearly those of a commoner. He fumbles the hoof pick in his hand and scrabbles for it in the straw, briefly, before giving up entirely and just staring.

"He's with you?" Silence. "Unfortunately, this space is reserved for the Eastern State's steed." He smiles genially to take the edge off; he's sure the stable boy was just confused. "Shall I show you where to put your master's horses? There's a gold piece in it for you, I'm sure."

The stable boy bites his lip, his face unreadable as he suddenly and expertly mounts the stallion bareback, leading it out the stall door past Viktor and urging the horse into a smooth, gaited escape. The soft yet firm line of the man's back has the prince feel yearning shift restlessly in his stomach.

"Viktor." Yakov is at his side, already looking stormy, as predicted. He'd clearly come to fetch him.

"Ah, I know I'm meant to be up at the castle—" he apologizes flippantly, but his advisor grimaces and interrupts.

"I see you've met the new reigning heir of the Eastern empire." The familiar smell of hay and horse is suddenly painfully sharp in his nose. "Excellent job."

He can still see the redhead on the horizon, steady and fresh in the morning light.

 _Come back_ , he wants to say, but this is always where the dream frays, where Viktor wakes, sweating and clutching at satin sheets. Most nights he falls back to a fitful, dreamless sleep; some nights he stays awake because he fears the dream, fears failing in a way that he never has to deal with in real life.

It's his first meeting with his soulmate, played on endless repeat, though it alters every night. Viktor is a successful heart surgeon who tries to politely tell a patient's haggard wife to leave the diagnosis in his hands, only to discover she is actually his pulmonologist, fresh off of a forty eight hour shift. Viktor is a Russian mob boss who mistakes the head of a yakuza clan for a _chauffeur_.

There are constants to his dreams, of course. His soulmate never speaks, just stares with endless brown eyes from shifting faces and bodies. His soulmate is never angry, not even particularly shocked. You'd think that after a hundred nights like this, dream-Viktor would learn, would correct his mistakes. You'd think that actual Viktor Nikiforov, the skater who can accomplish any jump or spin, would be able to learn.

Instead, he feels eyes on him, and turns to see a short, rumpled fan staring blearily from behind the fan barrier after his fifth Grand Prix gold.

"A commemorative photo?" He asks with a practiced and perfect smile. At the words, the fan's face shifts, his glasses altering angle so Viktor can see past the glare on them to soft, expressive brown eyes. The fan hunches and spins on his heel, his tiny suitcase bumping behind, and in confusion, Viktor watches him go. A rough hand lands on his elbow. Yakov clears his throat.

"That would be Yuuri Katsuki," Yakov tells him, aggravated.

"Am I supposed to know him?"

"One of this year's top six skaters in the world?"

Viktor feels his mouth go dry.

"Oh," is all he can reply, and Yakov doesn't even stop there.

"Japan's ace? The one whose step sequences and spins are so complex that they are among the few I am trying to teach Yuri Plisetsky- Russia's future skating savant- to aspire to? One of the rare skaters who puts all of his quads in the second half of his program? The one whose performance component score is so high that he got into the top 6 despite flubbing at least one free skate jump in all of his performances?"

"I am a bad person, Yakov," he realizes verbally.

"Admittedly, he was a disaster tonight."

Suddenly Viktor is feeling sick for multiple reasons.

"I dreamed about this," he says hesitantly.

"About gravely disrespecting one of the few people whom you can consider a peer? How often could you possibly dream about that?"

"At least once a week."

"Oh no," Yakov says, "You will not tell me that man is your soulmate, Vitya." The champion is uncharacteristically silent, and Yakov groans. "The Russian media is going to have a heyday." He snorts. "Well, they'll have a heyday if he ever forgives you."

"He'll forgive me," Viktor insists. "I'm sure he's had the dream too. He has to know that we're meant for each other."

The responding scowl is bitter. "It sounds like a nightmare."

"Like repeatedly being reminded your soul is bonded to an unreliable какашка," the young ice tiger feels compelled to add, snickering. "Maybe that's why he was crying in the bathroom. This is probably the worst day of his life."

"Oh," is all gold medalist Viktor Nikiforov can reply, feeling his heart plummet. He waits for the dream to split and shatter, to wake up clutching the sheets and insisting that he will not let the meeting happen like that, never again, but he is rooted and trapped in this reality, and his soulmate is stepping out alone into the frozen night.

* * *

His eyes follow the Japanese skater like a train wreck waiting to happen. When will he call him out? How should—how can— Viktor apologize?

"Stop looking, you idiot," Yuri hisses, but he's already doing the same thing.

A row of champagne glasses later, the Japanese skater approaches. Viktor prepares for a drunk and supremely awkward rant, involving the demanding of respect from his one and only soulmate.

Instead, the man babbles in Japanese for a few moments, hanging off of him with shining eyes.

 _That's not the face of an angry man,_ he recognizes, overtaken by confusion.

"Be my coach, Viktor!" He exclaims in English suddenly, flinging loose arms about the Russian skater.

 _Oh my,_ is all his brain manages before short circuiting. _Cute._

A few short minutes later they are dancing, spinning, _laughing._ It's not rare for Viktor to royally screw things up verbally, not rare for him to disrespect people, but what most don't understand is that he is well aware of the problem but the master of the press and fame doesn't know how to fix it. He can perfect a quadruple flip, he can suavely flirt for a while, but ultimately his own mouth is his enemy. He'll always regret his last words to his parents, his first to Yakov, quite a few of the ones he's thrown at ex-lovers. They've all forgiven him, but not like this. Not without a sharp edge of _don't do something like this again, Vitya_ , something he desperately wishes he could oblige. _I'm forgiving you because you're brilliant, Vitya, even when you are such a fool._  
Yuuri dances like forgiveness is an abstract concept, like the world is so breathtakingly beautiful there is nothing to be forgiven. He's tipping his bottle of champagne against Viktor's lips, swinging it up too high and brushing the errant sweet droplets from the corners of Viktor's helpless smile with clumsy fingers.

This is something the dream never prepared him for. He feels raw and thrust out beyond the limits of his comprehension; his tie is loosened at his throat, his muscles sore from victory but becoming more limber with every careless spin around the dance floor.

Later, Celestino is luring Yuuri away with whispers of _something_ —Viktor is almost certain he hears his own name but dismisses the thought—and then sloppy, sticky lips are pressed to his cheek.

"I have to leave now," Yuuri announces grandly, which Yuri follows up with a snapped _thank god_ in Russian. His blonde hair is still out of place from their dance battle. Christophe leans in and caresses Yuuri's arm, sweetly promising a rematch on the pole at the next international competition, _loser has to strip for the winner all the way_. Yuuri pats him back with deep sympathy. "I'm always single but not really, you know."

"Is that so." The Swiss skater is already incredibly interested, sagely nodding. "Who's won your glass heart?"

"Who wins everything?" He expects the tone to be playful, a joke, but it's not, just plain and unpracticed and almost exhausted.

"Yuuri," Celestino calls from a few feet away, "You made me swear to bring you back before midnight."

"I have to leave now," Yuuri announces again, more subdued, and he pats a fuming Yuri on the head before stumbling over to his coach. The Italian hauls the graceful drunk up to a respectable posture, and Viktor's soulmate is gone.

The party dies out like a doused flame, but the champion clings to the night, almost carries a champagne glass out with him before Yakov removes it from his fingers.

"I don't like the look on your face," his coach observes grimly. "And I don't know what you expect to happen, now."

Viktor doesn't know what he expects, either, doesn't know what he desires. He just knows that he _wants_ , desperately wants, and that when the dream continues to assault him every night his soulmate has solidified. Brown eyes, carelessly messy black hair, and as he makes his exit he turns back to Viktor now, intakes an inviting, smiling breath, and sends Viktor spiraling into conscious oblivion.

* * *

Yuuri doesn't remember most of his dreams. They stay with him in mute swirls of color and dance. The snatches he does remember are filled with icy blue eyes, what he's sure is a projection of his idol and childhood crush onto his soulmate. His dreams are bubbling sweetness on the tongue that pop when he wakes, and despite not knowing the full contents of the dream he never wants it to end, never wants to wake to solemn morning light. He comes to the day after the GPF having dreamt vividly, his soulmate taking on the form of Viktor Nikiforov much too closely. Worst of all, that heartbreaking error stays, every dream a spinning blur of silver and blue. He already has enough dreams of Viktor; he doesn't need his soulmate dream to take him on, as well.

It's almost like he's summoned him, with those dreams, and Yuuri pinches himself every day for the first week after Viktor arrives in Hasetsu. Before Beijing, Viktor has already sweet-talked and persistently maneuvered his way into Yuuri's bed every night, and he's almost fearful the other man will hear the sleepy roll of his name off of his unconscious tongue.

One evening, he wakes in that surreal space before dawn, sees the silver and blue beside him, assumes he's still trapped in the layers of a familiar dream. It's tempting. Even in dreams Yuuri is a hesitant and anxious man. His only comfort is knowing that here he will never be rejected, that when he slides his tongue into the champion's mouth there are no consequences, just quiet acceptance.

But it's _loud_ , with soft gasping and intimate sucking noises that Yuuri's mind must have fabricated from movies. His heartbeat pounds real and rapid in his chest.

"It's not fair," he murmurs lowly, pulling back, and Viktor presses upwards to meet him still.

"What's," a light brushing of their lips, "not fair, Yuuri?"

Even in dreams he struggles to say it, even in dreams Viktor's furrowed brow and red lips are irresistible. He leans in again, kisses and hopes he recalls all of this when he wakes, that he can daydream about it and pretend it's a memory. His coach is adept, but even he can't make up for Yuuri's inexperience. Their teeth clack, and Yuuri tries to shift to a better position but he accidentally bites instead, hears the resulting low moan and tastes sharp metallic blood—

Reality sends him tumbling, has his whole body freezing and trembling with impact, like when he falls during practice.

" _Viktor_ ," and he's pulling back, trying and failing to extract himself from the covers. It's not a dream, none of it is a dream, he's taken the fantasy of having Viktor come coach him and mold him into a worthy skater and ruined everything because he couldn't swallow his own feelings.

"It's all right," his coach soothes, sitting up, rubbing a finger to his lips in the dark. "It's okay, Yuuri, that happens sometimes. I don't mind. If anything, I like—"

"I'm sorry," Yuuri frantically agonizes, "I'm sorry, Viktor. I didn't know it was you, if I'd realized I wouldn't have... I thought I was dreaming and—please don't be upset." His breathing is the only sound in the room.

"You didn't know… it was me."

Viktor, in certain moods, is difficult to read while sitting across the table from him at dinner. Here, in heated darkness, Yuuri doesn't stand a chance.

"N-no."

"Who were you trying to kiss, then? Who else shares your bed?" _Playful_. The tone is brutally light, a challenge, and Yuuri realizes that Viktor is aggravated, just as he'd feared. Yuuri is a laughable liar, so he has to deal in partial truths. One flies from his lips.

"Soulmate. My soulmate. Sometimes I dream and I'm—I'm sorry."

Thankfully, his room is clean, the floor empty enough for him to cross in the dark. His hand is on the doorframe before he realizes that Viktor has already risen from bed and prowled over to him, mussed silver hair shining in the moonlight. It does something to him, deep in his belly, to know he caused it. He's gripping his hands into tight fists, stretching skin too far over his knuckles.

"You're going to leave your own room, in the middle of the night?" Viktor's laughter is a low rumble. Yuuri feels cornered, compressed, even next to a potential escape. "So, he looks like me, in your dreams?"

Yuuri's eyes flutter shut. _Exactly like you_. It'd be foolish to do anything but agree. "Yes."

"Does that please you?"

He clings to the doorframe, throws his eyes to the shadows at the edges of the room. "You know what you look like, Viktor." The Russian says nothing, tips his head. "You're on a most eligible bachelors list!" Yuuri prays he learned that information from some official site, and not a gossip magazine.

"I'm appealing to most, I know." He steps forward, Yuuri scuttles back, and his face settles into an impatient frown. "You're going to run again? I'd prefer not to return to the start of my stay here. I thought we'd been getting closer." Viktor looks so disappointed that, as his student, the Japanese man can't let him down any further.

"It's just embarrassing," Yuuri confesses hotly, "And I don't want to…" He gestures vaguely to the space between them. "Overstep boundaries." A wince. "Like I already have."

"Embarrassing? Oh." Viktor has his wrist, is gently guiding him back to bed, the scene of the crime. He wishes he could sink beneath the tatami mats on the floor. He feels anxieties begin to swallow him— _how am I supposed to sleep with you again, I'll never know if I'm awake or not, please don't be upset, Viktor._ Every action he takes with Viktor feels like a stumble, an accident, but his idol spins his missteps into gold. Shameful viral video? Viktor swears it inspires him. His ridiculous epiphany that katsudon is a metaphor for sexual love? Viktor instructs him to imagine the juiciness of the pork, proclaims him a winner. He wakes from a lucid dream and starts shoving his tongue down his coach's throat? Viktor… god.

Yuuri's luck will run out someday; surely that day is today, surely he can't take a kiss, an admission that his student actually _dreams of him_ and make it into—

"I dream about you all of the time, Yuuri."

The Japanese skater blinks. Seats himself lightly.

"No, you don't."

Viktor nudges at his knees with cupped hands until he pulls them from the floor, rolls over to his side of the bed. The Russian picks the sheets up from where Yuuri essentially flung them to the ground, snaps them crisply in the air while Yuuri's brown eyes follow him.

He's meticulously tucking the edges back under the mattress before Yuuri clears his throat, repeats himself.

"No, you don't."

"I heard you," Viktor replies calmly. He crawls over Yuuri and deposits his lithe form back into the bed with a sigh. "I don't pretend to know what your dreams are. Don't assume to know mine."

Lying there, his flush cooling and pulse slowing, Yuuri can almost imagine the last five minutes didn't happen.

"I don't really know what mine are about, either, most of the time."

"Really?" Viktor props his head up on one hand. "Even your soulmate dream?"

"Especially my soulmate dream."

 _"Really_?"

There's far too much excitement dancing in his blue eyes. A private heart-shaped grin is edging its way onto his face. All of the strain leaks from the room.

"It's not funny," Yuuri complains petulantly. Viktor tries to school his facial expression and fails spectacularly, cheerfully pinching Yuuri's cheek.

"Have you ever heard of a dream journal?"

 _I will never do that_ , Yuuri thinks. Viktor's fingers begin to trace spirals on his cheek. _Never_.

* * *

Yuuri is two weeks into his dream journal when he realizes that Viktor is keeping one too. Yuuri had been diligent, as he is with everything, leaving out only the dream after the night of the Cup of China because he'd been trembling too much the next morning to properly put pen to paper. Viktor had _kissed_ him, soulmate thrown to the wind, kissed him when they were both very awake. Minako sends him a movie file just minutes after it hits the news, and he saves it in a folder and views it a disturbing amount of times, mostly in the short period the Japanese skater has to himself before Viktor slides through his door at night. Sometimes, when the dancing steps sound outside his room, he has to hastily wipe away tears. Sometimes, the smile when Viktor comes in is real and sometimes it's not.

One morning, he fumbles for his glasses, stretches briefly, and feels for his dream journal in his bedside drawer. _I must've forgotten to lock it_. The notebook he pulls out is real, soft leather, embossed with gold. Carefully, he returns it to its position and pads out into the quiet bustle of the inn's morning. He wanders through the onsen, the kitchens, down the halls, finally finds what he's looking for perched on a bench outside.

The silver haired man waves with one hand. The other is clutching a cheap, slightly worn spiral notebook.

"Viktor," Yuuri breathes, "If you are reading my dream journal, I have to go throw myself into the ocean."

"I don't recommend swimming as exercise to improve your ice skating." He snaps the dream journal shut, beams up at the Japanese man like he hasn't just read five pages of indiscernible bits of the soulmate dream, seven pages of nightmares, and ten pages filled with _him_. "You agreed to let me look."

"A _page or two_ ," Yuuri protests in disbelief.

"So I picked a page or two." He pats the bench beside him, and Yuuri wordlessly complies to the request. "I left mine for you! It's an exchange, fun, yes?"

"No," his student grits out, looking down. "So you… found out. How much I dream about you."

"I already knew you dreamed about me." The notebook sits in the champion's lap, his fingers lacing lazily beneath his chin. "You made that excruciatingly clear."

"I'm sorry," Yuuri apologizes automatically, guilt clenching around his heart.

"I'm not." He nudges Yuuri's sneaker with a boot. "You know, most people who repeatedly see someone else in their soulmate dream would assume it was their soulmate."

"I know better," Yuuri assures him in a rush. "I know we're not like that." Viktor is just staring at him, so he ploughs on awkwardly. "Even if I dream about you all of the time. Even if you're very kind to me." The excuses ring hollow in Yuuri's ears, desperate covers for the truth. "Even if you're my inspiration. Even if…"

"Even if you love me."

"Yeah," Yuuri admits, voice watery, before he snaps his petrified gaze back up to Viktor's. "Ah. Not... well, yes."

"Yuuri," Viktor begins pleasantly, casually, "If I have to spend one more day physically throwing myself at you, offering myself to you emotionally in whatever way you desire, watching you stare at me and feeling you kiss me, telling you that I consistently dream about you _all while you deny we are even a possibility_ , so help me I will make a training regimen so harsh your teeth will fall out." He smiles beatifically. His hand gently pats a frozen Yuuri on the head. "Are we clear?"

"Like glass," Yuuri squeaks. He fusses helplessly with the fabric of his clothes.

Viktor flicks the notebook into his lap with a lazy toss of his hand. "You know where my dream journal is."

"Yep."

"And you'll go read it after we have practice today."

"Yes," Yuuri agrees. "And you… you really aren't upset?" He scratches at the surface of his dream journal with one finger. "Not even about the dream from last week with you?" Viktor says nothing. "You and me ice dancing and then we… um…" It was one of Yuuri's favorites, a recurring dream with a very satisfying ending.

Viktor's gaze settles on the notebook, slender fingers curling against his knee. He's an inherently curious person, Yuuri knows, and—

"You didn't read it," Yuuri groans. "Oh, god, I told you _everything_ and you didn't even read it."

"Ah, caught," Viktor hums happily, standing. "You should've known I would never invade your privacy anyway."

"I found you _under my mattress_ just last week looking at my posters! You have pulled me out of the onsen stark naked! You and Mari figured out my laptop password last month and you've been leaving me 'good morning' sticky-notes on my desktop and I _know_ you went through my pictures!"

"You never changed your password," Viktor accuses. "That's just common sense."

"Of course not, I like it!" Yuuri blurts hotly. Viktor smiles, slides his hands into his expensive jacket pockets. Yuuri stumbles up to his feet beside the older man, who begins to walk back towards the inn. Yuuri can't help himself; he follows.

"Also," Viktor continues conversationally, "I had no idea Christmas was your favorite holiday."

"What?" Yuuri raises an eyebrow.

"Your password."

The Japanese man nearly chokes on his own spit. "I—yes, it's my favorite holiday. I love Christmas." The last statement is true, and the first is false.

"Well, my password is Makkachin," Viktor confides, and Yuuri rolls his eyes. "I'm lying! That would be too easy. It's actually Sochi2015."

"Your last Grand Prix win," Yuuri supplies. They reach the door.

Viktor makes an odd sound in his throat. "Yes, that." He gently pushes his student through the inn door. "Now go get ready. And later, don't forget to _read_."

Despite his mind being occupied, practice goes smoothly. Viktor takes the ice when he's done, spinning expertly in lazy circles to warm up.

"I'll see you at home," Yuuri calls, and the champion waves from across the rink.

The Japanese skater doesn't know what he expects. He certainly doesn't expect the first date from Viktor's dream journal to be years ago. They're amusing, the dreams, and surprisingly are mostly Viktor repeatedly making a fool of himself. Several are in Russian, handwriting wobbly with sleep.

Then, the dreams change. He's read the fourth one that mentions dark hair, wide glasses, shorter frame before he feels the tears well up, his breath catch in his throat, flips back to the first of the ones where his likeness appears— _Yuuri_. It's one day after a date he couldn't forget, a date he thought would always be the worst of his existence. Hungrily, desperately he's reading, flipping through the pages and wondering dimly how any of this is happening in waking life.

He jolts when he hears the shower blast from the next room over. Viktor has returned, Viktor Viktor Viktor—

His coach always throws himself on Yuuri's bed when he occupies Yuuri's room, but the younger skater settles habitually on Viktor's floor, tucks his face into his knees, and waits.

Viktor emerges with the steam, white bathrobe loose on his shoulders.

"Yuuri," he says softly after a pause.

"You were already awake that night, when I kissed you."

Viktor chuckles. "Yes."

"You kissed me _back_."

"And I thought for a moment I was dreaming too."

Yuuri stands, but not for long. He takes Viktor down to the floor, cradling his head, hugging him fiercely.

"I love you, Viktor," he is saying, "I love you. We're _soulmates_ , aren't we, god I—"

Viktor never hesitates to meet him where he's at.

* * *

Yuuri has been _trying_ to read a book before going to bed. Viktor is determined not to let this happen.

"'There's a pole—I guess it's a stripper pole? There's a stripper pole at such a formal party, so I always know it must be a dream,'" Viktor reads, licks a finger and turns the page, "'How would they ever get it in? There's a hissing kitten and, of course, a shirtless Viktor Nikiforov because I cannot believe this is actually happening to me. This is the soulmate dream, which despite the stripper pole is usually appropriate—'" Yuuri throws his book to the covers and his head into his hands "'—so he kept his pants on this time, at least until...'" he squints, flips to the next page. "Yuuri, writing in Japanese is cheating."

"The journal wasn't made for you."

"I guess it was made for Mari, then."

Yuuri pounces as best he is able, but Viktor has longer arms.

"Translate it for me," the Russian sings.

"I am _never_ reading it out loud."

Viktor nips at his earlobe, whispers. "I can be very convincing."

 _I am never doing that_ , Yuuri thinks. _Never_. Viktor smiles, blows into his ear, reaches a hand beneath his clothes. _Maybe..._.

Yuuri stills, takes a deep breath, and tries to save himself as best he can.

"Take off your shirt and I'll show you."

Soulmates don't always dream about the same meeting, but now Viktor and Yuuri make dreams happen in reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I can be a creative person with unique ideas!  
> Also me: 99.9% of my writing for this fandom are scenes occurring in a bed.  
> I love hearing from everyone. I hope everyone is surviving all right without the show. See you later, friends! Also, I'm sorry that there is more sad Viktor. I keep promising myself that I'll be nicer to him, but I can't help it.  
> This soulmate AU was inspired by comments from Kirei Ao Tori and drkm2000 over on FFN. I'm very grateful!


	6. Making It Official

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We'll just pretend to be soulmates until you retire," Viktor offers, "that's what you need from me right now. It wouldn't be hard."  
> Yuuri doesn't know if that's true, but they try anyway.  
> (A collection of soulmate AUs. 6: where the government is in charge of handling soulmates and things get deliciously... filled with paperwork)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really long and spans more than all of season one and I'm sorry.  
> AU where soulmates are revealed/monitored by the government, and you get legal rights similar to a married couple if you choose to file for bonding. I actually explain this one pretty thoroughly in the chapter (shocking, I know)  
> As always, if you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me.

Making It Official

When Yuuri is ten, he and his parents take the trip to Tokyo to visit the Anima Department, waiting in the ridiculously long line while Hiroko and Toshiya chat quietly and ruffle his hair. Mari asks to stay home, having experienced the trip herself at ten and feeling unimpressed. Most schools are required to have a field trip to the Tokyo department or the one in Osaka, but the Katsuki family, like many others, want to be present for their children's experience.

After a veritable mountain of paperwork, a smiling woman ushers them down a long hallway, through a new office, and into a back room, away from the bustle.

"Oh, things have changed since Mari was a child," Hiroko peacefully comments. They all take their seats, Yuuri swinging his short legs in his chair and shyly avoiding the woman's eyes.

"I know you have come a long way and sacrificed your time for today," the woman says, "But I am obligated to immediately warn you that we cannot reveal your son's soulmate."

Hiroko covers her mouth. "Oh my. I thought if the other child was too young they would send us a letter telling us not to come for another few years?"

"Unfortunately, it's not an age gap issue. Your son's soulmate is of age." Before Yuuri knows it, his gaze which had previously been focused on the floor is looking at a pair of black shoes. The woman crouches down to his level, voice gentle. "May I call you Yuuri?"

He nods.

"Have they taught you much about soulmates in school, Yuuri?"

"A little." His voice is small. His mother has already given him the speech about a "person meant for him in every way," and so have his teachers, but it's complicated to grasp fully.

"Well, even though a soulmate is someone you're born connected to, it's difficult to find out who you match all on your own; it's in your blood. We test a little blood when you're born, and our world's governments have made it so it's easy for us to keep track of soulmates, but sometimes countries fight and sometimes they disagree."

"We're not in a war," Yuuri mumbles.

"No, Yuuri, we're not. But Japan has laws that say no matter where or who you are, as long as everyone is of age—that's ten years old, Yuuri—then you have a right to know who your soulmate is." She places a gentle hand on his knee, and Yuuri squirms. "Not every country has those laws. Some countries let you know the moment you come out of your mom's belly! In the US, parents can stop their children's soulmates from being revealed until they're 18. Some countries let the child choose to not reveal based on their soulmate's gender. There's so many reasons that someone could want to keep themselves secret from their soulmate." The Japanese boy picks at his fingernail, absorbing. "But what's most important for you to understand, Yuuri, is that this is not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong, and it doesn't mean you're not loved."

Yuuri watches his father take his mother's hand and tries to ignore the knot forming in his throat.

"So I won't ever meet my soulmate?"

"Your soulmate's country told us we couldn't reveal their identity to you. They also told us it wasn't permanent. Unfortunately, that's all the information we were given," she adds, looking to Toshiya. "Yuuri, I believe that someday you'll be allowed to know who your soulmate is, but right now we can't reveal them to you." She stands, clasps her hands behind her back. "Please take as much time as you need to process this."

Yuuri is already a quiet and reserved child. He plays by himself, skates and dances in every spare moment, and Yuuko and Takeshi are his only friends. Hiroko frets over him (despite what anyone may think, she's the one he inherited the anxiety from), feeds him katsudon and tells him every day how beloved he is. She'd always hoped his soulmate would make things easier, would bring him out and let Yuuri shine.

They go back home to Hasetsu with nothing, and the future stretches out infinite and unsure in front of him.

* * *

Yuuri is twenty-three and thinks about his soulmate sometimes just before he falls into the haze of sleep, and that's all. He has other things to worry about, namely his revived career and his new coach, whom he fiercely adores and is terrified by.

They've just made it through the Kyushu competition when it happens. The stamina Yuuri has always leaned on fails him when he pushes too far one evening at Ice Castle, despite Viktor's warnings. As if from far away, Yuuri watches his leg crumple at the end of a quad Salchow, his head slam to the ice, ringing until he moves into complete blackness.

Someone shines lights in his eyes, asks him a few questions about himself. There are machines and long car rides and Viktor trying very hard not to scold at him, at the doctors, at anyone in the vicinity. Slipping in and out is easy.

A hospital room is the next thing he sees clearly.

"I don't need a hospital room to myself," Yuuri groans.

"I insisted," someone says from the corner of the room. It's too loud, and too bright, though the clock on the wall says 11pm. Viktor is bright too, all silver hair and silky voice. "A doctor that clearly cheated to earn his medical degree misread one of your scans and told us you might have a major head injury, so we got a private room yesterday. Now they seem to think that you're mostly fine; they've got you on a few pain medications." Yuuri's neck and ankle ache fuzzily, it's true.

"Thank god. The Cup of China's soon. How did you get in here?" Yuuri asks in a daze. "I thought they only allowed family? Especially at this hour."

"Oh, that's easy," Viktor replies with an irresistible smile, sitting on the hospital bed beside him, "I fibbed and told them we were soulmates."

Thanks to the monitor, Yuuri can now _hear_ his heartbeat speeding up.

"What… they wouldn't just let you…"

"I had to sign a few things," Viktor admits, "But we can deal with that later."

"Sign _what_?"

Viktor crosses his legs, looking entirely undisturbed. "I'm not sure. It was all Japanese. Mostly I just wanted in the room, and I figured that was the fastest way." _Westerners,_ Yuuri thinks, _They always treat soulmate laws lightly._

"Viktor, if they try to actually register us there could be major issues." Fear comes far more slowly through the hazy fog of medicine. "They have my soulmate on record and there's fines for this kind of thing."

"Yakov always told me I'd be better suited for a life of crime," Viktor replies cheerfully, before leaning in, hand on Yuuri's blanketed shoulder. The Japanese tries to slow his breathing, to control the heart monitor, but it's a dead giveaway. "…I thought you didn't have a soulmate."

Yuuri blinks. "Who told you that?"

"Mari said you came back from your official reveal and told her you would never meet them."

"Ah, I was ten," Yuuri says, closing his eyes and leaning back into the pillow, "And even more anxious, if you can believe that." He bites at his lip gently, briefly, and laughs. Viktor's hand tightens on his shoulder. "The government just said it couldn't reveal my soulmate because of their home country's laws, couldn't tell me why, and then sent a nervous ten-year-old back to a town full of kids whose soulmates lived next door. I got dramatic."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one." Yuuri's eyes flutter open.

"So you know that you're dramatic?"

Viktor huffs and lays his head down on Yuuri's chest, giving the student a terribly tempting view of the silver crown of his head. _I've already poked it once, I could definitely…_

"I meant I'm not the only one that hasn't met their soulmate."

Yuuri could fake surprise, but he knows all about the man and Viktor is already aware of that. "You know, most people think you've already found them and have just hidden them away on some private island."

"Is that so?" He twists his head, chin settling over Yuuri's heart. "That does sound exciting. Are you most people?"

"I'm a competitive skater," Yuuri replies, yawning, "I just thought you'd given yourself to the ice."

Viktor hums, and he can feel it pulsing against him, can feel Viktor's next words tiptoeing over his chest, lulling him to sleep.

"I didn't mean to."

* * *

He wakes when the nurse comes in, chest empty and Viktor sitting at the window, flicking through his phone. Now that he's awake, she fires off a barrage of questions for the physical that Yuuri would feel uncomfortable with if he were completely healthy. Viktor's hand finds his under the covers, answers when he deems it appropriate.

"Smoker?" She questions, pen hovering over her clipboard.

"He's smoking," Viktor corrects, already incredibly pleased with himself, "smoking hot," and she scowls and Yuuri shoots him a sleepy disbelieving look before he relents casually, "No. He needs his lungs to skate competitively and run his 9 kilometers every morning."

"How often do you exercise?"

Viktor taps at his wrist impatiently beneath the covers.

" _Every morning_ ," Yuuri repeats after Viktor with as much sarcasm as he can muster, so it comes out politely. Viktor laughs quietly through his nose anyway. Every morning. Every afternoon. Most nights.

"Any medications?"

"Over the counter pain pills," Viktor supplies. Two of them in the morning, if his feet are especially bruised.

Yuuri squirms, spares a half glance at Viktor before quietly admitting, "Lorazepam. Since I was fifteen."

"For insomnia, or anxiety?"

"Both." He feels the shameful burning in his cheeks, can't quite meet Viktor's gaze. His coach's fingers lace with his own, but he feels too disconnected from the situation to try and give any meaning to the gesture.

"Allergies?"

"Latex?" Viktor suggests sweetly under his breath so quickly that the nurse doesn't even understand why Yuuri sputters and flails, bites out,

"No allergies!"

"Are you sexually active?"

Silence. Of all of the questions to treat seriously, this one has Viktor behaving.

"No," Yuuri murmurs, and it sounds deafeningly loud.

The nurse's pen hesitates, her eyes wandering between the two of them, narrowing at Viktor's hand beneath the hospital sheets.

"It is important," she emphasizes, "To be honest for this examination and take it seriously."

Yuuri shivers a little, stops the words from tumbling from his mouth. _We're not soulmates, we're not lovers, don't look at us like that. Don't make me remember that Viktor and I are just coach and student and nothing else_. "I'm being honest." She raises an eyebrow. "Tell her, Viktor."

" _We're_ not sexually active," Viktor informs her blithely.

Another nurse pokes her head into the room. "I forgot to include the extra paperwork for this room, my apologies. The soulmate filing just came back." Yuuri flinches.

"Thank you, I'll come grab it." Her pen flits across the page, and she turns back to them. "I'm sorry, I deal with a lot of teenagers that try to sell me the _not sexually active_ idea, lying in their hospital beds with their soulmate, and I forget that some people don't meet until they're adults."

"Oh," Yuuri says, seeing the opportunity to move to fix the falsehood, because they're not soulmates, no matter how much he's imagined it. "We're actually not—"

"That familiar with each other yet," Viktor finishes smoothly. "Lovemaking will happen someday, when it feels natural."

The nurse, a cranky older woman, looks somewhat dazzled and wanders out the door. Viktor has that effect on people. Yuuri is certainly one of those people, and he rubs his cheek into the uncomfortable hospital pillow for a few moments, embarrassed and trying to wind himself down. _It's almost like Viktor means it_. Before he can ponder it too much, the nurse returns.

"All right, your soulmate paperwork went through. The doctor'll be in later and wants you monitored for another twenty four hours to be absolutely sure there's no head trauma, but then we'll release you."

Yuuri feels like there must be head trauma.

"It went through," he repeats cautiously. "Viktor and I are legally recognized as bonded soulmates."

The woman sniffs. "It seems anticlimactic, I know, it's not very romantic. My soulmate and I signed in a courtroom one day and it felt like nothing had changed."

She exits. Yuuri tries to breathe slowly.

"Who?" He asks Viktor.

"Who… what?"

"Who did you flirt with to get the papers through?"

"Yuuri, I'm offended that you think I would use my body and not my money to bribe someone." He retracts his hand from Yuuri's under the covers and sits himself in the chair next to the bed. It's too short for him—his long legs seem curled in slightly, until he crosses them. "I suppose some government employee didn't really look at your file, just approved it."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Why would it?" Viktor challenges merrily. "Look at us, Yuuri, soulmates!"

"Look at us," Yuuri echoes, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Oh, are you tired again?" Yuuri nods. Exhausted. "Get some sleep, then. And don't worry, Yuuri, if something goes wrong we can always contact the bonding office and tell them there was a mistake. Until then, I'll stay right here with you in the hospital."

_But how long will you stay with me?_ Yuuri wants to ask, _How long will you be my coach, pretend to be my soulmate, hold my hand under the covers?_

"You don't have to. Goodnight," he sighs instead, and Viktor responds with lilting, affectionate Russian, _goodnight_.

* * *

In the night, he wakes slowly. Quiet bustle sounds in the hallway, low voices and tapping shoes on the hospital floors. Something softly sweet permeates the air, and Yuuri realizes a shadow in the corner is several vases of flowers; someone must have visited. He fumbles for his glasses on the nightstand, starts to make his way to the light switch, before he hears a slow breath, the rustling of stiff sheets, and realizes that a cot is cramped in the corner.

_You stayed_.

He sits back on the bed, stares in mute surprise. There's a swooping in his stomach, and he's too jarred to try to crush it. The cot is short for his coach, and one leg hangs prone from the end of it, the other curled up into the mass of covers. It's an uncomfortable mess.

_You actually stayed._ Laughter bubbles in his throat, and he manages to swallow it. _It's not like I'm dying, Viktor, they're releasing me tomorrow. I'm not even badly hurt._

It doesn't matter that the gesture is exaggerated. The damage is done.

Yuuri stays in bed and worries till he feels drowsiness tugging at his eyelids again.

* * *

_'JAPAN'S ACE FINDS SOULMATE IN COACH!'_

Yuuri stares numbly at the headline and wonders if this is worse or better than when Yuuko's triplets posted his video and it went viral. There should be a limit to how often the media is allowed to pay attention to you. He's at the windowsill, and the sickening scent of the flowers—one with a card signed by an overly eager reporter who chatted with the nurses— is making his stomach turn.

"It's all right," Viktor comforts. It's not all right. That must show on his face, because after several long moments of silence Viktor narrows his blue eyes and says, "Talk to me."

"What if they _arrest_ us," Yuuri panics.

"Yuuri, pretending to be soulmates doesn't earn jail time in any country." Yuuri knows. It doesn't help.

"Everyone's going to see through it right away. We're not soulmates. The judges will think I'm a criminal—or worse, they're going to know that we were registered as soulmates and then broke up because we're not compatible—"

"Slow down," Viktor interrupts, but on this rare occasion Yuuri plows over him, feeling tears well up.

"And everyone _hates_ that—" it's a stigma, in essentially all countries "—and it'll affect how they score me and my scores are already dismal enough as it is, and you'll have wasted your time coaching me," Yuuri knows he should stop, can hear the desperation rising in his voice, but he can hardly help himself. "I should've listened to you and not tried the Salchow that day, this is all my fault, I knew my legs were tired—"

" _Yuuri_." Viktor captures his face between his hands. "Shh. It'll be fine. They won't have to know."

"What?" His voice trembles.

"We'll just pretend to be soulmates." Viktor pats his cheek fondly, expression pleasantly blank. _That's crazy_ , Yuuri wants to say. _You're crazy. No one does that._ It's not the first time he's thought it. Viktor is a genius, yes, but the brilliant tend to have their quirks. Most of Viktor's involve being naked and sending Yuuri and Yuri on vague, frustrating quests. "We can just pretend until you retire."

"We can't," Yuuri states, biting his lip. "My soulmate won't mind, won't even know, but what about your soulmate?"

"Oh, солнышко." Viktor pulls back, laughs a little. _His fringe is in his eyes_ , Yuuri thinks, and he's struck by the terrifying longing to brush it away. "I think my soulmate moved on a long time ago."

"Viktor." For a moment, Yuuri almost forgets. He forgets that they've only really known each other for a few months, not counting his years of adoration. He thinks that maybe if he runs forward he could meet Viktor where he's at sooner, provide more for him, tumble into him, hear him whisper words that Yuuri hasn't dared to imagine yet. _Tell me everything. Make yourself human for me._ Courage is trickling through his veins, hitting his lungs, and his mouth opens, and—

"It's not like anyone will be able to tell." At the interruption, Yuuri's urge crashes painfully in his throat. Viktor tucks his own fringe behind his ear, and the younger man's fingertips itch. "It's not as though as soulmates we have each other's names on us, or have to burst into song when we see each other, or are literally bound at the hip."

Yuuri scrunches his nose. "None of those things would ever happen."

"The universe is a vast and mysterious place," Viktor whispers, eyes sparkling, and Yuuri just helplessly smiles and shakes his head. "But not here," the champion admits, finger on his chin. "And a soulmate is what you need right now. It really wouldn't be hard."

Even in the most affectionate times of their last few months, Yuuri has felt unstable, clinging hard to something temporary, running his body into the ground for it. A legal claim over Viktor is surprisingly seductive, an excuse for the possessiveness he already feels winding around his heart. "It wouldn't," Yuuri agrees, swallowing.

"So?" Trying to contain the desperation, the excitement, he scrabbles for Viktor's hand and squeezes it.

"I don't think we've ever tried anything easy before," he says, and the Russian laughs and chucks him gently under the chin.

* * *

Yuuri spends much of his time performing, but that's a talent reserved only for the ice, when he's untouchable, when judgement is suspended so long as he does what he's meant to and _flies_. Viktor, he's learning, is different. Every toss of his head, every wink, is smooth and effortless and utterly crafted. It doesn't necessarily make it less _appealing_ , to know that it's intentional manipulation; Viktor is an artist and his skating, his teaching, even his persona are an art. Yuuri will never tire of his mastery, but he also wants to meet the man behind it all, to find the intentions behind the actions. Emotion and intention are Yuuri's language in a way that action is not.

Some things are universal, however, understandable in any language.

"You kissed me in front of everyone," he murmurs in the changing room, fingers trembling on the soft fabric of his outfit, and the _why_ doesn't matter at the moment. Viktor looks up from the bench, catches his eyes. Muffled humming and the steady beat of shower water drifts through the wall from the closest skater to the pair.

"Well, you didn't want it when we were alone."

"Don't say that," Yuuri pleads, and the Russian's teasing smile falters. Viktor runs a finger over his left knuckles; one is bleeding slightly, rubbed raw from the ice. It's odd, to see the crimson on pale skin. To think that Viktor would hurt himself just to be close for a few moments.

Yuuri's mind excels in scenarios that don't always exist, in angles. In Detroit, late at night, panicking that he'd left his family for skating despite his father's tendency to catch pneumonia and the occasional falter in his mother's step and the gray in Vicchan's curls; all of them dead. Convinced that Phichit, his cheery friend despite the occasional panic attack and the Friday nights in, grows resentful and wants to leave. At the last GPF, before his skate, the premonition of the crash and burn that then happened.

Viktor is beautiful from all angles. Their kiss too, because it's Viktor saying

_The kiss is an act, but if it is it's still an act of love, here is my soulmate it's true we are we are we are, believe us, you are worthy_

_The kiss is real, but if it is then I don't mind pretending_

_The kiss is real, but if it is then I don't mind calling you my soulmate_

_This is a performance, but you are my partner._

Everything on the ice is love. It is not always the same kind of love. Yuuri will take what he can get.

Later, they order room service, which Viktor insists on feeding to him, and in return he picks the peppers out of Viktor's meal ("The texture is all wrong, but Yakov always made me eat them, so I never take them out myself." "Russian children actually look up to you, Viktor."). They shower and climb into their respective beds. Yuuri is wrung out, ready to sink fully into the pillows. He doesn't even take off the silver medal.

" _Finally_ ," Viktor emphasizes, and Yuuri flushes, rotates to stare at the champion in the dark. It's hard to even imagine that Viktor had been waiting, had been excited, had—" _Finally_ we are having a proper sleepover. I've been trying for _ages_ , Yuuri."

"Didn't we sleep together before the free skate?" He grumbles fondly, and Viktor pats at his mountain of pillows.

"Doesn't count. That was during the day." There's a brief silence, almost enough for Yuuri to close his eyes in. Viktor promptly interrupts it. "I was so proud of you today."

Yuuri fists his hands in his sheets, feels one tear slide down his cheek. "I know."

"I know you can do _even better_ ," Viktor begins, and Yuuri throws one of his two pillows at him. It is promptly added to the Russian's collection. "I'm sorry. I'm appreciating this," Viktor hums lowly. "I am."

Yuuri sighs. "Well, we're having a sleepover now. What do we do?"

"Truth or dare," Viktor replies instantly.

"I'm not getting up," Yuuri promises.

"Truth, then."

"Mm," the Japanese skater agrees.

"Do you hate your soulmate?"

"What? Viktor." He stares at the ceiling in the dark when he realizes the silver haired man is serious, contemplates it. "No. I just felt… lost. Like I did after the GPF last year, but more… spread out. Like there was nowhere to go, like I'd lost something precious that had never actually been mine. Just like skating. When I was younger, I tried to be bolder, get out of my shell, be a better skater, and sometimes it was because I thought _someday they'll come for me and I want them to stay when they do_. And they just… never… well. They're still not allowing their reveal. I'm not the type of person to sit still and wait and hope things will change. Why do you think I would hate them?"

"It's easier sometimes," the older man says finally, "It's easier if I pretend that my soulmate hasn't wanted me in a while. That they hate me."  
"No one hates you," Yuuri urges quietly, "Please don't think that."

"It's been twenty years since my first coach had my parents and I sign away my right to reveal. My soulmate could be in their thirties. They're probably married, with kids, you know?" The Russian's voice is bland, even rehearsed, though from the flatness of the tone possibly never aloud.

"You were seven," he realizes. Many athletes sign away their rights to know their soulmate so they can focus. Some countries even require it; Yuuri had been lucky. "Viktor, that's too young. It wasn't even your decision."

"It was my decision when I was twenty. Yakov said I didn't have to sign, but I did it anyway. It'd been over ten years already, and it meant more sponsorships and it meant less distraction from the ice."

"Your soulmate would understand, if you told them."

Yuuri can't see Viktor's face, just hears the quiet, "No, _you_ understand." They are men made of their dreams, entwined in them. Everything they do sings of the ice, and no one besides a skater could empathize.

"Legally, I'm your soulmate."

"So you are." It's warm in the room. "Mm. Hmm." Yuuri realizes he's losing him.

"Hey. It's my turn. You're the one who wanted to play, so don't you fall asleep on me."

"I already told you everything," Viktor complains affectionately, and his student doesn't laugh. _Soulmates aren't everything_.

"If none of the crowds knew your name, and you couldn't skate," Yuuri offers, "What would you do?"

"I don't know how to do anything else but skate," Viktor laughs softly. "Perhaps ballet, though I never had the energy for it." He pauses. "Do _you_ know my name, in this scenario?" Yuuri can't imagine a scenario where he doesn't already desperately love Viktor.

"Yes," he says instead.

"Then I'd find you, and we'd be terrible at skating together, faded away into happy obscurity." Blame sinks its tendrils through Yuuri's frustrated mind, because it sounds enough like a fairytale that the Japanese man feels it in his heart, and it stings.

"I'm still a figure skater, you know," he teases, and Viktor's silver head pops from the covers. "Maybe I've still got my skates and don't have to dramatically 'fade into obscurity.'"

"Katsuki Yuuri, are you saying that you aren't completely unknown in the world of skating? You arrogant, self-absorbed man. Where did my sweet Yuuri go?"

Yuuri grins to himself, feels the warm clenching in his chest. He opens his mouth to shoot back a comment, but it goes dry when Viktor pads through the space between them, arms laden with pillows.

"Scoot over, please," Viktor commands airily, and Yuuri obliges, watching his coach settle. The space is small. His fingers twitch, fear clouds his eyes. Viktor's actions always boldly stand before him, silently offering, and he's never sure of their intent. "I like pretending with you," Viktor tells him.

_I hate pretending at all_.

"Convince me that it's real," Yuuri orders firmly, desperately. Viktor is slow to move, but only at first. When they kiss and press against each other, when Viktor gently enters him, rocks him, Yuuri is grateful that the man is the best performer of their time.

* * *

The bliss lasts for a week, at most.

"So, how are you and Viktor getting along now that you've confirmed your soulbond?" Yuuko doesn't look up from cleaning the skates, just smiles to herself.

Yuuri gapes. He should've expected Yuuko to ask, he knows, but it doesn't change the fact that he's underprepared. Naturally, there are things he doesn't share with his childhood friend, but he doesn't _lie_ to her.

"Ah," he finally says with a tremor in his tone, "We're actually not soulmates. The papers got it wrong. There was a mix-up at the Anima office, I think. We filed but it was just to let Viktor see me in the hospital. And now we're… pretending."

"A mix-up," Yuuko repeats slowly, setting down her tools with a grace befitting the prima donna of Hasetsu. "Yuuri, please don't lie to yourself. Other countries have some paperwork issues, but I don't think the Anima office has wrongly assigned a soulmate in fifty years."

"We filed," Yuuri explains weakly.

"Then they should've rejected you." She careens gracefully around the desk, clasps his hands with hers. "Oh, _Yuuri_. You're soulmates. This is so exciting. You waited so long." She pulls back when the first tear hits her knuckle.

"He'll never believe it," Yuuri grits out. "If he finds out we actually are he'll apply for a legal break. He's going to, after I retire, we agreed, but I thought until then… until then…"

"For as much as you respect Viktor, you don't have a lot of faith in him." Watery brown eyes hold hers. The skater doesn't reply. "Yuuri, I want you to promise me something. Can you do that?" He nods mutely, slackens his grip on her hand. "I want you to try it, to be his soulmate for as long as you can. I want you to do it with no regrets, and do it _properly_."

Yuuri is a perfectionist, and willing to try.

* * *

He stops at the family bank on the cooldown from his run, thinks he'll pick up a few coins to give the girls for the odd chores they do around the inn.

"Oh, Katsuki," the native behind the counter greets, "Glad you're here. I've got extra paperwork for you today."  
Paperwork is a word he's learning to fear.

"May I… ask why?"

"You're on a new account, of course," the man chuckles. "Your foreigner came in and settled it."

Dazed, he agrees, signs his name on the dotted lines. He runs back to the house instead of walks, forgets the coins for the girls, tumbles onto his bed and yanks out his laptop. His online account has a few notifications, and Yuuri clicks on the new account number, looks. He cleans his glasses and looks again. And again. Then he steps down the hall.

"Viktor." The Russian, sprawled across his mattress, immediately rolls to the side, lifts an arm as though waiting for something to fit beneath. Uncomprehending, Yuuri stares at it. "You have accidentally shared a hundred million yen with me."

"Oh, my emergency fund. Of course you're on it, _soulmate_." He winks, pleased.

"A hundred million yen, Viktor."

"The conversion rate between our currencies is amazing, isn't it?"

"I don't even _pay_ you," Yuuri frets, and Viktor narrows his eyes with a sigh.

"There's no point in moving money around between our shared funds."

"I have to lay down," Yuuri gasps faintly and thinks he hears a muttered _I'm dramatic, am I_ before Viktor raises his arm again, flexes one finger in a come hither motion.

"Perfect idea."

Yuuri slams the door.

* * *

Most of his night is spent in carefully controlled agony. Viktor has become his coach out of interest and his soulmate out of kindness, has shared his bank account and his house and apparently wants to share his bed, too. It's too much. Yuuri has nothing to give him, except his skating. His skating is never enough. But he _tries_.

They've had dinner, and it's surprisingly warm outside, so he fidgets next to Viktor while he scrolls through his Instagram feed, until the Russian smiles up at him. "Yes?" "Would you… like a tour?"

"I've been here for months," Viktor states bluntly. His eyebrows indicate gentle confusion.

"Hasetsu has its secrets," Yuuri tries to say enticingly, but it just comes out unconvincing instead. Viktor is excited anyway.

"Show me, show me!"

So he does. He shows him the candy store he always passed by longingly as a child, the hill he and Yuuko used to roll down, the dog three blocks over who just had a litter of puppies. They aren't poodles, but Viktor coos at them anyway, tickles their downy bellies and passes one off to Yuuri just so he can pick up another two. The owner watches from her porch and waves at them sleepily.

"She asked me for an autograph, once, when I was thirteen," Yuuri confides. He immediately feels foolish. Viktor's probably been asked for an autograph by everyone he's met since first entering the Junior division.

"You never forget the first one," his idol says instead, a fond curl to his lips. "It was quite the shock." The Japanese man's heart pulses in his chest.

"One last thing," he blurts, bowing a farewell to the dog owner.

There's a greenhouse, tucked away to the left of a dead end. Yuuri knows that the key is under the mat; Mari had used to babysit for the family and they'd welcomed visitors. Viktor squeals over the bonsai, puts one hand up next to them for comparison and snaps pictures in the dark. Snagging his sleeve, Yuuri pulls him to the center.

"Blue roses!"

"Careful," the younger warns, and Viktor's already wincing lightly, pulling a pierced finger back to his mouth and sucking at the skin. Yuuri tries not to think too hard about it.

"I had these as a flower crown once," Viktor reminisces warmly, and the other man just nods. "You already knew that."

"I—" Yuuri ducks his head in heated embarrassment. "I did." Viktor links their hands (there's a drop of blood that smears and oddly stings at Yuuri's palm), leans forward and delicately smells the roses. He frolics about for a while longer, the jubilant half of their sated pair, chatting amiably and pattering through the moonbeams.

"What's next on our tour?"

"Bed," Yuuri replies, yawning. The Russian wiggles his eyebrows, which Yuuri doesn't notice.

"I can't have seen it all," Viktor whines.

"You didn't even think you needed a tour," Yuuri reminds him. Viktor, pouting, doesn't reply for several moments.

"Hasetsu is lovely on the surface," Viktor says suddenly, as they make their way back to the front of the greenhouse, "And yet somehow even better, now that I'm getting to know it. I want to be drawn in even more." He smiles, places his free hand on Yuuri's shoulder. "You were clearly raised here. You embody Hasetsu."

Yuuri shudders, just a little. Enough for Viktor to blinkingly frown. When he tries to release Viktor's hand so he can return the key to its proper location, he almost imagines that Viktor squeezes tighter. Like he doesn't want to let go.

The Russian is beautiful and brilliant and deserves to be paraded through exotic grand gardens on romantic evenings, Yuuri thinks, by someone who spoils him, loves him dearly, is worthy. Yuuri is poor and needy and linked inextricably to his small, slowly dying seaside home. Yuuri is killing his competitive career, and now he's taking Viktor's life, too, and feeding him what little he possesses in return like it could ever be enough.

"I don't deserve you," Viktor tells him when they're halfway back to the onsen. The kiss he presses to Yuuri's cheek is light, his arm curling around Yuuri's waist. Shame sloshes in the Japanese man's belly; he feels sick.

_I don't believe you_.

"You deserve so much more," Yuuri murmurs, and his coach just shakes the hair from his face, grins at him like an unbelievable dream. It had been one of the best nights of Yuuri's life, a play at tender domesticity and dating. It hardens his resolve.

_I'm retiring, and I'm setting you free_.

* * *

Altering the flight back from Russia after the Rostelecom cup short program is a nightmare, but Yuuri feels strangely determined to be the one to do it. After Yuuri told his coach his intentions, the older man had quietly changed into exercise clothes and slipped off somewhere in the hotel.

He works with the customer service woman in English for several minutes (after being on hold for twenty), and eventually convinces her to let him switch the flight.

"I just need confirmation of Mr. Nikiforov's identity before I switch the flight." Yuuri desperately scans the room. Viktor's computer and phone are nowhere to be found or are locked, and all Yuuri has is the credit card the Russian man handed to him. "There should be an email."

"Ah," he finally pleads desperately, "Could I just—"

"I'm sorry, sir, but only a spouse or soulmate can change a flight without the email."

"I—" Yuuri takes a breath, "I'm Katsuki Yuuri. We're soulmates, does that mean…"

"Oh!" She interrupts, and he hears typing in the background. "Right. Mr. Nikiforov mentioned you, we have a secondary email listed. I'll send it to you."

"Thank you," he replies automatically.

"You're all set!" It's easier than he had thought it would be. He numbly makes the correct clicks on his computer.

Yuuri wonders if it will ever become easy to lie. They're soulmates twice over, but they _aren't_ , they just…

Viktor comes in and buries his face in Yuuri's neck, alternates between fervent whispers of _thank you_ and _I'm sorry_. He smells of clean sweat and pine, of frozen air. Everything is beautiful. Nothing will ever be easy.

* * *

Yuuri is vibrating, ready to feel out the GPF rink's ice, but first they have to deposit their bags at the hotel. Yuuri is lugging his suitcase, his gear, and the smallest of Viktor's three bags ("what if I buy things, Yuuri? I have to be prepared."). Naturally, he is caught in the extravagance of the five-star hotel's lush entrance, though Viktor sweeps right by it and to the front desk. Yuuri knows there will be selfies later.

"Hello, I'm Viktor Nikiforov," Yuuri is pretty sure the desk clerk already knows that, from the way her eyes are shining, "and we should have a suite with a king bed reserved under Katsuki."

The clerk drums her fingers nervously, and Yuuri catches up in time to hear her quiet, apologetic reply, "I'm sorry, Mr. Nikiforov, but when this room was reserved whoever did the booking gave you two doubles, instead."

"Oh, how unfortunate." Viktor's smile is rueful. "I'm just curious—is that your normal protocol for mated guests?" Dimly, Yuuri feels foreboding looming over him.

She clicks a few times, flushes. "Whoever was taking the information down that day didn't register you two as soulmates. We'll compensate you—this is unacceptable."

"Not at all," Viktor assures her, smoothly removing his sunglasses and tucking them into the front of his coat. Over the years, Viktor's had billions of camera lights flashing at him, and Yuuri thinks they've somehow become embedded in his blinding smile. The Japanese man blanches in anticipation. "I'm fairly certain the miscommunication didn't happen because of your staff."

The elevator ride is long. Viktor taps at his phone vigilantly and the straps of Yuuri's backpack dig into his shoulders. They're standing in front of the door, and his coach slides the room key from his pocket, but holds it at his side.

"I'm not sure how long it will take to familiarize myself with your shyness, Yuuri. You're timid. Yet you humor me, surprise me, sweep me up. If you regret us becoming soulmates, say so. If you just want to be lovers—"

Yuuri's head snaps up, and he snatches the card from Viktor's hand, hastily bargaining with the door. When they manage to open it, Viktor has him flush against the wood.

"Message received," he says quietly, dipping for a kiss, but Yuuri ducks his head.

"I'll show you," he breathes, "I'll show you what I want us to be. Just give me a little time."

Viktor tilts his head, waits for a few beats, chuckles gravely. "I'll never predict you, will I?"

Yuuri hopes that will always be true. His coach certainly seems surprised, when he slaps down his credit card for the wedding rings, when he guides them to the cathedral. Soulmates already have even more legal benefits than a couple; marriage is rare, often between people who have lost their soulmates or don't believe in them. Yuuri doesn't care. This is different. It isn't obligation, or kindness, or for the sake of skating. Maybe Viktor doesn't understand, or he goes along with Yuuri's vague assertion that they're a good luck charm and is joking at dinner with the other skaters, but the flush on his face and the way he cries out Yuuri's name when the Japanese slowly takes him apart later that night changes.

(Many of the other skaters at dinner don't even recognize what the ring means, their society is so far removed from marriage.

"I feel excited and I don't know why," Phichit whispers, staring intently.

"It's an engagement ring," Viktor insists and educates, "We'll marry when Yuuri gets a gold medal." Gold medal is a word they all understand.

"You're _already mated_ ," Yurio feels the need to tell him later before the group separates to their different hotel floors. Yuuri bites his lip. "Did you forget, you geezer? Why do you have to be all over each other in every possible way?"

"Buy us a wedding gift," Viktor sings, blowing a kiss.

"Maybe if you're lucky I'll frame you a picture of me wearing my gold medal," the teen sneers.)

"You bought these with your own individual credit card, even though I gave you one for both of us," Viktor realizes quietly the next morning before they leave for the short program, pausing in washing his face. His laughter is unsteady. "Why?"

Yuuri doesn't answer him.

"Let's end this," is his answer later. He doesn't know what to do when Viktor cries.

"I thought we'd have more time together," Viktor admits, fists clenched.

"You are the best coach I could have had," Yuuri tells him demurely, and he means it.

"None of this has to end."

"But I'm tired," Yuuri chokes out, "I'm tired." _Of pretending and wondering what will become of us and never being enough and— killing you, Viktor_.

"Do what you want," Viktor fumes, cold and back in control. "Just do whatever you want and don't think about me. You never wanted to play at being soulmates anyway. You're still waiting for your real one, I know—"

"I _always_ think about you," Yuuri sobs, because he can't take it, can't properly handle an emotional and scathing Viktor, "Always. I'll never be mated to anyone else, I don't want to." He tries to summon up the courage to tell, but it's been locked inside of him for so long that he doesn't know how to begin.

Viktor curses quietly in Russian. Yuuri screams silently into a pillow. They go to bed angry.

"I'm sorry," Yuuri says when they wake up. He turns to the expanse of his coach's back beside him.

"Then don't retire." Viktor is petty. Mostly desperate. "Stay my soulmate. I'll stay your coach. We'll be together."

"Doing one of those things doesn't have to mean another," Yuuri pleads through the tightening of his throat. "Just do whatever is best for you, Viktor."

"I've been selfishly doing that for twenty years," the older man snaps, and when Yuuri slowly shakes his head, disagrees, he thinks for a moment that Viktor will cry again. But he doesn't. He lets Yuuri take his hand. "I trust you," he strains huskily. Yuuri doesn't deserve him. They embrace, and then Yuuri leaves to break his world record.

* * *

When they return to Hasetsu, Yuuri offers to let Viktor file for a bond break before his retirement, and his coach sweeps up Makkachin and locks them in his bedroom until Yuuri apologizes through the door. They talk for hours. When they're done talking they usher Makkachin out and stay in the bedroom for another few hours. Yuuri never offers again.

They make the decision to move together, as fiancés, soulmates, and coach and student. They are too linked to do anything else.

"Why are you applying for my passport like I'm some random foreigner?" Yuuri questions one day, finding Viktor huddled over his computer while holed away on his living room couch. "Russia has to let me in. I'm bonded to you." Viktor raps hesitantly at the keys.

"I feel if we ask soulmate privileges for that Russia will check the paperwork on their end, and realize the Japanese government let us file for soulmate rights on accident."

Yuuri is tired and would rather be lying in bed, or slowly slipping off Viktor's shirt. The time will never feel right, so he says what's on his mind. "It'll be fine. Japan doesn't make mistakes." Viktor gapes at him. "Don't look too happy. We're both going to start getting hate mail when we participate in each others' Nationals. We qualify, now."

"How long," Viktor demands, poking at him in wonder. "How _long_ have you been sure of that?"

"I'm still not completely confident," Yuuri confesses. "Just… kind of convinced we were meant for each other."

" _I_ convinced you," Viktor announces jubilantly. "Even though wooing you with my god-given ability to sign you up for credit cards and make your medical decisions if you fall into a coma wasn't as romantic as I'd planned." He essentially throws the laptop on the dresser near the bed, gathers Yuuri up and presses their rings together. "So, when you win gold at Worlds, I'm thinking a winter wedding. Obviously, there has to be an ice rink! I've also been looking into the cost of renting horses, and getting us matching suits—"

"I already have a suit," Yuuri interrupts, and Viktor sputters, snags his chin, leans forward with intensity and promises,

"I will set fire to your closet and burn all of your comfortable sweaters if that's what I must do to get rid of that suit. It does nothing for your figure. Anyway! I want a buffet with katsudon and pirozhki, and I've been checking how legal fireworks are, and I want to hire a choir to remind us of Barcelona—oh, Chris will be so disappointed if we hold the party on an ice rink, he won't be able to bring his pole—and I'm worried about Yurio kicking me if he has ice skates on—what do you think?"

Yuuri buries his face in his beloved's shoulder, laughs despite himself. Viktor is sweetly harsh, and ridiculous, and officially his. "I should've just retired."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> солнышко: little sun  
> A/N:  
> Yuuri: I'm hungry  
> Viktor: Let's go grab a bite. I have absolute faith in whatever you decide, Yuuri  
> Yuuri: What're you talking about you literally never let me pick a restaurant  
> Viktor: That was an internal monologue about our considerate and mutual love  
> Yuuri: So we can have tapas then?  
> Viktor: No hush we're having borscht
> 
> Howdy friends. Firstly, I'm gonna apologize that this was not an AU based off of a reader suggestion. This story has been in the works for a while (like before I posted this fic) and was partially written and was whining at me to be finished, so in the interest of actually having something to post this week, this happened. Secondly, I'll be doing a song soulmate AU next time, which HAS been suggested, because I read everyone's comments multiple times and am genuinely excited about the recommended soulmate AUs. That is all! See you guys later, and I love ya!  
> P.S. If anyone is wondering why Japan lets you know your soulmate at 10 years old in this AU it's 100% because they let you become a Pokemon master at that age.


	7. Sound and Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soulmate AU where everyone constantly puts out music, but you can’t hear your own sound until you’re with your soulmate. You can ‘project’ music of your choosing too, which is essentially singing, but far more difficult, and is done as an integral part of the sport of figure skating.

Figure skating is about making music with your body, meaning it with all of your soul.

Or, at least, a significant amount of the points awarded in the sport are given to that.

Being able to match the song Viktor projects perfectly to whatever he’s skating is something that never fails to enamor the judges. There's few other skaters (though Yakov claims a young American looks promising and a Japanese man may even be _better_ ) that can project music as accurately as he does, and none that can do it while performing flawless quads.

_Nikiforov has done it again, filled a whole stadium with music he's created from his soul, a projection feat matched only by the perfection of his quadruple flip!_

Viktor is untouchable, a master of soft music and flying physicality—the crowds are deafening, the cheers a clamor, the fans screaming his name, year after year after year.

Silence. He comes off the ice to silence.

Even Yakov, who knows him well, just hears bits of refrains in his everyday music.

"Really," he grumbles one day as Viktor moans pathetically about  _poor Makkachin, all alone in the apartment,_  "I hardly think the music of Les Miserables is appropriate for this situation. I told you your dog couldn't attend practice, and I meant it."

"Which song?" Viktor asks, a bit too interested, because he doesn't ever hear music he creates, unless he's projecting. He won’t ever hear his own natural music, which unconsciously surrounds him at every moment, until he spends time with his soulmate.

"I can't tell, it was only for a few beats." Yakov's music is all classical Russian pieces from the 60s, punctuated by drumming intended to push on a soldier. When Viktor tore a tendon at 22, the older man was Russian lullabies to his student, even while he yelled, nostalgic melodies underlying _Vitya, you fool_. Yakov is a good coach, who Viktor should listen to more. He never will. "Now practice."

Practice is really all Viktor ever does.

Katsuki Yuuri does many things besides practice. When he was younger he helped at the onsen, took Vicchan on runs, and worked on projecting to show off to Yuuko, who swore his notes were lovely and pure, even though he knew they wavered off key. Now, he enters his apartment at 8pm to Phichit's jolly  _ra-nat ek_ winding in softly from the background. He cooks himself dinner, stands in front of his mirror and moves through ballet positions out of habit. Soon. So soon. He watches Viktor Nikiforov's FS from the Trophee de France, and then he cries quietly, and he thanks whatever gods are out there that Katsuki Yuuri somehow scraped into the Sochi Grand Prix.

Later, he thinks the gods are cruel.

* * *

Viktor doesn't feel eyes on him anymore. Everyone is always looking; the uncomfortable awareness that  _I'm being watched_ is the champion's life.

So it's not the Japanese man's gaze that catches his attention—no, it's the sheer volume. His old Junior days music is being blared at him, oddly rearranged into clashing harmonies on a foreign instrument Viktor can't put a name to.

The champion calls out to him, watches the brown eyes widen, the music scream to a halt. The scratching static that follows rings in Viktor's ears for hours, unbearable and far too long lasting.

“Yakov,” he pleads, “Yakov, I can’t go to the banquet. My ears are burning.” They both know his attendance is mandatory. There will be a racket of sponsors and howling journalists and younger skaters grinding their teeth at him.

Hours of noise is too long, Viktor thinks. And yet he goes. He shouldn’t have.

The music surrounding Yuuri at the banquet echoes to Viktor for  _months_ , an impossibly beautiful and taunting thing, and there’s only one way to make it stop.

* * *

 

Everything sounds different, in Japan. Yuuri knocks politely on his door one morning soon after he arrives, fidgets as though expecting his music to speak for him.

"The cherry blossoms are blooming," he finally manages, "Do you want to come listen?"

"Listen?" Viktor asks, and Yuuri doesn't answer, but he doesn't have to.

The petals fall, each a vibrating _koto_ note that brushes over Viktor's shoulders and Yuuri's soft cheeks, till they lay humming and pink on the ground. 

"I didn't know some plants made sound," is all Viktor can say. Yuuri is gentle when he gestures Viktor into a rosy pile--he doesn't playfully push him there, though someday Viktor wishes he would-- smiles at him as his music sings sweet and low. "I never want this to end."

The humming petals atop his hands are fading slowly, ancient and thin, and Yuuri's head dips.

"Everything ends," he says, mostly to himself. Yuuri sits as close to Viktor as he dares, until the blossoms lay silent.

Their time begins.

* * *

 

Yuri Plisetsky is, despite the soft leopard print jacket and his fondness for cat ears, constantly accompanied by screeching metal and guitar riffs. Yuuri pities the boy’s soulmate, who he imagines will have to listen to quite the rock concert when they’re close. As they spend more time together, Yuuri begins to suspect some of the heavy metal is projected and not natural, though he never voices this theory to Yurio. He’s trying so hard, after all.

He skids to a stop one day beside them at practice, when it’s Yuuri’s time with Viktor.

“Ugh,” Yuri tells them, “You’re both putting out the same dumb song and I could hear from the side of the rink. Stop it.”

“Oh,” Viktor hums, blinking, “I didn’t realize.” Yuri can hear him better than Yakov, sometimes, and he’s sure Yuuri’s natural volume helps. “Do we sound good together, Yurio?”

“I want to cut my ears off,” Yuri responds fiercely. “Also, it’s making that Yuuko woman leak fluids from her nose. I am ready to bash both of your heads in, but more than anything I am ready to work on _Agape_ now, so shove piggy off the ice and out of your flirting range!”

To emphasize his point, he launches into a ferocious quadruple Salchow accompanied by a guitar solo.

“I think,” Viktor says slowly, “That you are not in the right mindset for _Agape_.”

“SCREW MINDSET,” Yuri hollers back.

A week later, Yuuri wins the competition, but Yurio has found his _agape_.

* * *

Sometime after he tells Yuuri to work out his own free skate, Viktor comes back from Makkachin’s morning walk to frantic wind instruments punctuated by static, and Mari slipping earplugs in.

“Oh,” she says, watching him flinch, “did you need some too? I guess you know him well enough by now to hear it.”

“It’s _terrible_ ,” he emphasizes and she presses her lips together and sighs.

“It’s Yuuri.”

“Is he dying?” Viktor asks, peering down the hall, taking a few unconscious steps. “That would not be ideal.”

“He sure thinks he is,” Mari grunts. “He gets like this sometimes. You just have to let him work it out.”

Viktor has no interest in letting his chosen protégé “work it out.” Action generates results. Sitting around and thinking, plotting out consequences and implications and worrying over them, has never been Viktor’s strong suit. That doesn’t make him impatient—no, he doesn’t care how many times he has to try.

“Let’s go to the beach today, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” the huddled blanket shudders back.

His student is oddly quiet, crunched into himself atop the sand, pressing his face into his knees. Viktor misses the sound, the soft chords of _Yuuri_ that always surround him. He itches to _listen_.

By the end of their conversation, when they shake hands and the sun is shining through the clouds over them, Viktor realizes the songs he’s heard, everything he’s projected, is nothing compared to what pours from Yuuri now. Now that Yuuri has let go—now that he’s let Viktor go, too, told him to be himself. Viktor is willing to try.

 _Ah,_ he thinks, _So this is music._  

* * *

 

He’d picked Makkachin because of the way he could hear a strumming _balalaika_ as she wriggled in his lap, the same pleasant little jingle weaving in and out of his awareness, almost human. Sometimes, when she first burst into the rooms at Yu-topia, Yuuri would startle, mouth curving up before his music would stutter into minor key for a few moments.

“You had a dog.” Viktor murmurs. “I can tell.”  It’s uncomfortable, to mention someone else’s music, especially when Viktor knows he gives off little in return. Yuuri doesn’t seem to mind.

“Vicchan didn’t sound the same.” Yuuri blinks. “I should know better.” His coach hasn’t dared to approach the little shrine he’s noticed in one room, unsure as to whether it’s appropriate to bring up.

“What did Vicchan sound like?”

Yuuri works at his lip. “I have video.” He doesn’t move. Viktor doesn’t mention it. Finally, the younger man reaches for his phone. “I’m probably going to...” He doesn’t finish, just rubs at his eyes for a few brief moments and then gently pushes the device into Viktor’s palm, wandering off towards where they’d last seen Hiroko. Viktor feels he’s violating sacred ground, but presses play anyway.

“Vicchan,” a young voice whispers, followed by a rapid string of Japanese.

The camera blurs and shakes, and even when the grainy image sits still it’s obvious this was taken years ago. The poodle is smaller than Makkachin, but just as sweet, scrambling up from his nap and trotting alongside the walking sneakers in the video, ears flopping in time.

The voice makes tempting, sweet promises to Vicchan in a foreign tongue. The poodle yips softly—he’s more talkative than Makkachin, too—and the camera pauses in its movements. “可愛い, Vicchan,” the voice coos. Viktor’s view is just the floor, looming closer, and he can’t see the interaction but he _hears_ the response, knows instinctively that a younger Yuuri is kissing his puppy, fawning over him. The pup responds with a rapid burst of flute, and there’s giggling, and Viktor feels something pull deep in his chest. He’s taken a million videos of Makkachin, and someday he’ll look at her like this, hear her song on a recording and nowhere else.“Viktor,” Hiroko’s voice says, and instinctively Viktor looks up at the empty hallway before realizing with a warm shiver that the voice is coming from his own hand. The exchange continues in Japanese, and then they’re running, Vicchan— _Viktor_ —set leaping against a familiar backdrop, the route to Ice Castle. He’s not sure how long the video lasts, and he never finds out, because Yuuri bursts back into the hallway and snags his phone from his surprised hands.“I forgot,” he pants, music rapid and tense, “Um. You didn’t… right?”“Is your dog named after me?” “You _did_ ,” Yuuri groans, retracting into himself, music cutting itself off. That’s all the answer the champion is going to get.“Vicchan was adorable,” he says, “ _Viktor_ was adorable. You were adorable. I’m naming everything after you. All of my routines and my car and my pillow, so I can finally say I’m sleeping with you.” His student moans out a long _no_ , holds his red face in shaking hands.“They’ve already named a famous angry teenager after me,” Yuuri mutters under his breath after a long pause, “Look how well that went.”

Viktor is astounded by the _want_ that rises noisy in him—he wants to kiss each of Yuuri’s palms, to open up his lips and make him sing, to give off raw emotion in music like Yuuri does on the ice and in his everyday movements. But he doesn’t. Doesn’t do those things.

Not yet. 

* * *

 

Summer builds slowly to a crescendo of  _Yuuri Yuuri Yuuri._  They skate, Yuuri spins in the ballet studio, Viktor sings and projects tinkling nothings at him as they walk, not speaking, on the beach at twilight.

It’s quiet and intimate and laced with every kind of song. Sometimes, when he opens his eyes to the steam of the onsen, or watches his student skate and project not for coaching but for the sheer pleasure of it, Yuuri won’t meet his gaze and his music is frightening and odd.

Viktor is in love. Yuuri's music grows louder, more complex, by the day. Viktor can't tell if he's listening harder or if Yuuri is subconsciously allowing it. He’s never been close to someone like this before, never known what it meant for their sounds to move past background beats and give off words, melodies. He’s not sure what it means; not sure if it’s happening to Yuuri to the same degree. When he skates, his music is unchanged—his step sequences and spins flawless, his projection of _On Love: Eros_ filled with enough emotion to bring passerby to a full stop.

And that _music_. The music he makes with his body— it’s all Viktor can think about. It’s layered, now, always accompanied by an underlying hum that Viktor can’t quite make out, something soft and yearning that he empathizes with. Sometimes, he imagines it’s Russian, that the sigh of syllables underneath Yuuri’s occasional rendition of _Lohengrin_ is speaking to him, but he’s never sure.

 _Please let us be_ , he thinks. He’s never wanted this before. If he just pushes hard enough—if he just stays. Maybe he’ll hear his own music winding with Yuuri’s. _Soulmate._ It’s a constant refrain— _please, soulmate, please_ —sounded more desperately as they get closer.

No matter how close they become, Yuuri never stops being easy to tease, though.

“Why can’t we sleep together?” He asks innocently in the middle of September, “You let the triplets nap with you. I saw it.” He’d taken pictures of it, too.

“You are a twenty-seven-year-old _man_ ,” Yuuri states flatly. “Not three little girls.”

“I’ll be whatever you want me to be,” he promises seductively, brushing his lips against his student’s ear. “I already told you that. Though I didn’t know I had to offer to be ten-year-old triplets.” Yuuri’s music staggers and breaks into a few high staccato notes.

“You’re ridiculous,” he says, but he’s smiling.

“You know me so well. Can we sleep together now?”

Yuuri considers it, much to the agony of Viktor’s heart rate.

“I wouldn’t get any sleep,” his student muses. Viktor is shocked and excited and about to blurt out _no you definitely wouldn’t, I’d make sure of that_ , when Yuuri finishes up with, “You’re far too loud.”

“I don’t snore,” Viktor sniffs, feeling mildly offended. Yuuri blinks at him.

“Your music,” he explains, and his expression is the closest it’s ever been to _what is wrong with you_. “You’re…” he pauses, sucks at the inside of his cheek. “You’re deafening sometimes, Viktor, you know that.”

“Nobody’s ever told me that before.” His hands clench at his sides. “There are very few people that can even _hear_ me unless I skate.”

“Well,” Yuuri responds plainly, his hand on the doorframe, “I can.” He winces. “Through the wall, too, especially in the mornings, and then I hear my music coming up to meet it and, well, I have to wake up—” He stops as pale hands grip his shoulders.

“You know what this means,” Viktor says suddenly, his own voice scrambling to keep up with his burning thoughts, his breathless realization that Yuuri hears his own music, hears it because of _Viktor_. “We’re soulmates.”

The champion has spent years envisioning the celebration when he found his soulmate. He hasn’t decided on a favorite way yet—sunsets on beaches, dancing in the rain, ice skating on frozen ponds under the stars— but whatever he’s expected, it’s not what happens next.

“Yeah,” Yuuri agrees unsteadily. He takes a step back into his room, out of Viktor’s grasp, and slides the door shut.

Viktor stares at the wood for a few moments. Finally, reality hits. He raps against the door with his knuckles insistently until brown eyes are peering out at him again.

“What?”

“ _Yuuri_ ,” he breathes. “This is… this is…”

“You didn’t know?” His student shifts awkwardly between his bare feet.

“You _did_?”

“Why else would you come halfway around the world?”

Viktor stares at him, baffled further. “For the way you make music with your body. I told you.”

“You meant that… about my skating and projection? Not just about the bond?”

Viktor feels the floor has been ripped from beneath his feet.

“You don’t think I’m serious,” he realizes, “About coaching you. You still think this is some kind of reckless whim of mine.”

Yuuri laces his fingers behind his back, and Viktor watches him set his mouth in a subtly firm line. “I know I was a hundred points behind you,” he says quietly, “At the Grand Prix. And that afterwards I… let myself go. And that I haven’t mastered my short program or free skate, yet. And you’re still… practicing, sometimes.” It’s a habit. Viktor hasn’t quite let go. Maybe he never will. “But I’m serious about my skating. I want to win. I want to…” His voice falters, dips. “To win.”

“I want to win with you.” Those eyes are on him then, soft and serious and considering. Viktor feels the pedestal melting beneath him. They’d both been intoxicated when Yuuri had asked him to be his coach; he hadn’t realized how it could be interpreted as a drunken dare taken to extremes, a summer getaway before competition, or a seasonal fling. “Yuuri. I’m being honest.”

Yuuri flushes. “I… know. The longer you stay, the more I know I’m assuming things I shouldn’t, but still.”

“It’s _September_. This isn’t just me jet-setting off to tug my soulmate around for a bit as a vacation.” He frowns. “Who does that?”

“International playboy superstars with a penchant for reckless flirting,” Yuuri retorts automatically, and then slaps a startled hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not… that’s not what you are. It’s just hard to believe, sometimes, that this is happening.”

“That what is happening?”

“That you’re here, with me. And that we get along so well.” _You mean: that we were made for each other_.

“I’m a human being, like anyone else. I have a soulmate, like anyone else.” He feels his lips tighten, hears _his own_ music strain, that soft current underlying Yuuri’s that must belong to him, this unfamiliar piece of himself that’s been sitting there, waiting to be heard and recognized. “Are you saying I’m meant to be by myself forever, that no one can be up there with me, just because I’m a successful figure skater?”

“N-no, not by yourself forever, just not with—well, me, and…” Yuuri pauses, and then presses his face to the inside of the door. Viktor feels slapped, and automatically flattens his facial expression and steps back, but Yuuri is fumbling pleadingly at Viktor’s shirt with three fingers. “Come inside?”

Viktor can never resist him.

Yuuri’s room is an organized mess; clothes in one pile on the floor, walls bare, ripped papers with skating ideas thrown across his desk in disarray.

When he returns his gaze from scanning the room, Yuuri is looking at him hard, tears already welling.

“I’m sorry,” he voices shakily, and rubs fiercely at his eye with one sleeve, “I hurt you, didn’t I? That wasn’t fair.” It’s so odd, to be apologized to by the person that’s crying. “I say things I don’t mean, sometimes. Well, that’s not quite it, I just—still, I hurt you, and I’m sorry.” His voice is plain, and awkward in cadence, and breathlessly honest. Viktor feels desire hum traitorously low in his chest. Yuuri swallows, fiddles with his now damp shirt, then jerks his head up again, eyes narrowing. “I never said you’d be by yourself. Do you… think that?”

Viktor’s mouth goes dry.

“No,” his tongue says for him, as his mind has nothing to offer. It doesn’t matter, because Yuuri forges forward as though the answer had been _yes_.

“But you’re… you’re brilliant, Viktor, and bright, and everyone knows it.”

“I’m also selfish and arrogant and vague. I don’t like to listen. I’m overly analytical and still forget my promises.” He waits, dares the other skater to disagree, feels his fists tighten. His student breaks the tense air.

“And manipulative,” Yuuri adds in a quiet voice. “And impulsive, and blunt.”

“Thank you,” Viktor replies flatly, curiously relieved. He focuses intently on the empty walls, until his student makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, music picking up tempo.

“Patient,” Yuuri nearly stutters out, “Patient. And sweet. Trusting and affectionate and attentive, and hardworking, and brave, and creative, and, um.” He essentially chokes on his own tongue, but Viktor can hear it, can hear the rhythm he’s established continue on without his voice, his music continuing as though there’s _more_ , more that Yuuri can’t even say but that he genuinely believes. Viktor wants to hear it all, never wants the song to stop, but when he takes Yuuri’s face in his hands it fades out into skittering percussion.

“Is this okay?” He asks, and Yuuri just gives a laugh, the incredulous disbelieving one he makes when Viktor insists Makkachin have the first bite of his food, when Viktor tells him the sway of his hips during a rendition of Eros was _perfect_. It’s not a yes. So Viktor waits—Yuuri had said he was patient, after all—but he doesn’t wait long.

“Just one,” Yuuri decides, and surges up. Viktor melts.

His lips are soft, and his face is feverish and wet from crying—Viktor knows, because he’s got Yuuri’s cheeks pressed between his fingertips, holding him for as long as he can. God, the sounds they make together. When the younger skater finally breaks away he’s breathing hard, nose still brushing Viktor’s. The champion dips, presses a lighter kiss to the corner of Yuuri’s mouth, who audibly scoffs, his music noticeably quieting. The room feels hushed, sacred, in the aftermath of an explosion of sound and touch.

His student presses up again. Viktor knows, already unconsciously tilting forward to meet the next kiss, that certain parts of himself no longer belong to him.

His lips only kiss air.

“I said _one_.” He’s chuckling before Yuuri finishes the thought. “Creative and hardworking and brilliant and incapable of counting to two.” Viktor swings the man up from the ground in his arms with a rumbling laugh, buries his face into Yuuri’s soft shoulder. “And,” he sputters against Viktor’s ear, quiet and subdued, “A good kisser.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Viktor promises. He squeezes, and Yuuri squeezes back, _Stammi Vicino_ chords falling from them both.

This. This is not what was expected. Life surprises him, sometimes. Viktor loves surprises.

The summer dies out sweetly, clasped warm in their linked hands.

* * *

 

“Does it ever bother you,” he asks one day, running his fingers through Yuuri’s head of hair on his lap, “That I don’t make any music sometimes?” _Closed off_ , someone had told him once, before he was Viktor Nikiforov and nobody questioned anything about him. It bothers Viktor now. When he’s by himself, when the silence swallows him. Here, with Yuuri, he can finally hear his own sound, and it’s intimately comforting.

“I like the quiet.” Yuuri doesn’t even open his eyes. “Some people communicate with their music—and some people speak with their actions or their mouth, I guess.”

“Which one am I?”

Yuuri smirks up at him. “Actions and mouth both. _All_ of the time.”

“Well, excuse me,” Viktor huffs. Yuuri twists his fringe between lazy fingers, clicks his tongue thoughtfully.

“You’re really more of an action person, though sometimes your words carry a lot of meaning. I just know that there are better things you can be doing with your mouth than talking, most of the time.”

“Is that so,” Viktor replies, said mouth curling up into a smile. “Like kissing you?”

Yuuri’s face warms as he mumbles something, and he shrugs his shoulder up into Viktor’s knee. The Russian pokes at him until he repeats it, louder. “You’re so innocent, Viktor.”

“Oh my,” the Russian realizes with a trill of joy, “You’re propositioning me. Off to bed, then. Unless you want to do it here on the inn’s floor?”

“ _No_ ,” Yuuri frantically replies, and repeats it three times for good measure. It’s hard to mean it, when the grip on his hair is tugging lightly, blue eyes roving _down_. “Joke, it was a joke—“

“Okay,” Mari interrupts suddenly from the opposite side of the nearly empty room, arms laden with towels, and to Yuuri she is a glowing savior. For a few moments, anyway. “Your music is getting a little R rated. We do live at an inn, you know. It’s not hard for you two to get a room.” 

* * *

 

It is one thing to _know_ that Viktor is his soulmate, logically, to hear the very sounds of the champion’s soul and his own response to it. It was easy, to have the conversation with his mother when she invaded his room a few weeks into that fateful summer, laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Yuuri,” she says gently, “You hear yourself, don’t you?”

“It’s Viktor, mom.” Viktor had always owned him, body and music and passion. Giving him his soul seemed the obvious conclusion; or at least, Viktor being _his_ soulmate seemed true, just not the mutuality of it. Believing that is the impossible feat, another thing entirely.

Viktor loves to achieve the impossible and make it look effortless. He kisses Yuuri on his cheek and forehead and the tips of his fingers. He giggles at Yuuri’s forced jokes and laughs heartily at things Yuuri lets slip thoughtlessly out. The Japanese man might never be fully convinced it was meant to be, but he has his moments where he acknowledges that it feels _right_.

“Yuuri,” Yuuko whispers to him one day in Japanese as he laces up his skates next to the counter, at the end of a discussion about how things are at Yu-topia after the Kyushu championships. “Did you know that you and Viktor are harmonizing?”

“I know,” he murmurs, face going steadily pink, “I can hear it.” Yuuko drops her cleaning rag.

“Your soulmate. Viktor Nikiforov, Yuuri!”

“Viktor,” he agrees, but he can’t say anything else because Viktor strolls in from the rink doors, blade guards over gold, and kisses him square on the mouth.

“That’s what you get for gossiping about me,” he chides in English, his music rolling over Yuuri like a tide.

“What,” Yuuri says dazedly, and Yuuko squeaks.

 “When you talk about me your music switches over into a 12 beat emphasis for flamenco—I can hear you from the ice, you know.” He smiles beatifically and Yuuri just gapes.

“Anytime I—talk or think about you?” _All of the time. When I’m skating and when I’m running and when I’m sleeping oh_ god _no please no_ —

“Seriously, though, Viktor Nikiforov,” Yuuko suddenly pipes in Japanese from behind the counter, her face sly.

Yuuri pales, hisses, “Yuuko, he’s right here— _mmmph_.”

“That’s what you get,” the Russian repeats when he pulls back from Yuuri’s lips for the second time. Yuuko ducks beneath the counter, and Yuuri knows her well enough to imagine her shaking with laughter from the safety of the desk. And to think, everyone believes the triplets take after Nishigori in how tricky they can be. “Now, less gossiping. More ice skating. We have much to do.”

They’re soulmates. They’re in a _relationship_. Viktor can be an absolute terror.

Yuuri doesn’t think life could get any better.

* * *

 

The Cup of China proves him wrong.

Viktor _wants_ him, publicly, drags them up to reporters together after the medal ceremony, laughs when the journalists try to ask them questions over the din of their combined music— _I can’t hear you, I’m sorry, we’re just both putting out a lot of sound right now, but hopefully your microphones can pick up Yuuri’s notes and our harmony. That’s what everyone should hear._ Then there is winking and pulling and kissing wetly in the shower, an unused bed in their hotel room.

Things have been going so well that Yuuri almost forgets.

His mind doesn’t always allow him happiness.

He should’ve recognized the tightening around his heart, the emptiness of his stomach. After all, Yuuri had been dealing with anxiety since he was a young child. But he had been riding high on his victory at the Cup of China the week before, and he had been a fool.

Every anxiety attack was still debilitating. It became easier, to control his emotions, to feel the surging tears and searing heat at the base of his throat. Destroy fifteen years of hard work in a day at the Grand Prix? He can wait until he locks himself in a bathroom stall to sob. Feel an anxiety attack approaching for no reason? Yuuri can ride the train to Yu-topia, face relatively flat and voice at regular pitch as Viktor chats. Even blocking out the blaze of some underlying static that hums quietly at the station, on the train, and finally at Yu-topia doesn’t break him. His solitary bedroom and dark quiet await him. He’s almost there, he’s almost—

“Yuuri.” He nearly gasps when the Russian catches his elbow at his bedroom doorway. “I can… hear it. Let me help.”

The younger stares at the floor, at their blurring feet, just inches apart.

“I—“ he quivers. This isn’t Viktor’s responsibility. He’s not even sure the champion can help him. It’s embarrassing and vulnerable.  
“Let me,” Viktor repeats softly, “Please?”

“I-in the room.”

He holds his hand over the light switch when they enter to prevent Viktor from flipping it, settles onto his bed and feels his breathing become more frantic. Working it off isn’t an option, at this stage. He stares determinedly everywhere—everywhere but at Viktor, rakes his eyes over the familiar things and the shining leftover strips of tape on the walls. It doesn’t matter, because he can still hear the other man, his music an oddly slow rendition of _Stay Close to Me_ , careful and filled with intent.

Then it changes. He can see Viktor’s lips purse in concentration, feel their hands intertwine.

“You’re projecting now?” He laughs shakily.

“Shh.”

It’s an old Japanese ballad, one that strokes at memories of his mother humming in the kitchen and stretching out next to the radio in summer heat. Viktor’s rendition blurs words, leaves others out entirely. It’s a reflection of his grasp of the language. It doesn’t matter.

Yuuri’s heartbeat slows to match it, and the anxiety doesn’t go away—it never goes away—but he feels it recede, lets him breathe for a moment. It’s what he needs to reach up, take his soulmate’s face in both hands, bringing one of Viktor’s with him.

“ _Mite mimashou_ ,” he murmurs in his native tongue, putting the stresses in the right places, hears the projection shudder and correct itself. Viktor nudges forward, presses their foreheads together. His fringe is soft between them, and Yuuri brushes it away shakily. They’re skin to skin. “ _Me wo toji_.” To focus on it, to soothe his mind, is a blessing. They echo and trade as they sit, unmoving except for Viktor’s absent tracing of the lines on his palm.

Sitting there, projecting and pressing gently at him to quell his anxiety, cannot be Viktor’s idea of a pleasant afternoon. The blue eyes stare at him, half lidded but glowing with purpose. _Eyes on me_.

It’s too much. He cries, and the song dissipates, chords leaking out into his coach’s more standard _Stammi Vicino_.

“I’m sorry,” he says, over and over, in English and Japanese and even Russian, when he manages to collect himself enough. “I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this. It’s not—you. You gave me so much. Sometimes I just have to cry.”

“Then cry,” Viktor tells him softly. They’re still pressed up close together, at the edge of a kiss, but Viktor angles his lips away. “Just cry.”

Yuuri does. He cries soundlessly until Viktor pulls back and says, “Ah, there.”

“What?”

“The static stopped,” Viktor murmurs, and kisses his forehead. “There’s my Yuuri’s music.”

Yuuri can only stare up. He wishes he could hear properly too, completely, know what beauty Viktor listens to in him, but all he hears is his music, same as ever before.

 _I love you_ , he wants to say, but his mouth feels sealed shut. He doesn’t pay attention to whatever chord progression falls from him. Viktor’s eyes widen anyway, a hum sounding out in surprise from his throat.

“What do you hear?” Yuuri asks.

“I hear what I want to,” Viktor replies vaguely, “That’s what Yakov always told me.”

“Yeah?” Yuuri’s voice is soft, but warming up. “I bet you ‘misheard’ Yakov often.”

Viktor puts a finger to his lips, cocks his head, and grins. “Never.”

“He definitely said, ’take a break from your incredibly successful skating career to coach a random Japanese man you don’t know in the countryside, Viktor.’” Yuuri tries to put gruffness in his wobbling voice, and Viktor just goes _pfffft_ in a way very unbefitting of an international heartthrob.

“No, not a random Japanese man, Yakov had already heard more than he wanted about you.” He nudges at Yuuri’s shoulder, his music suddenly low and brimming with anticipation, and Yuuri stares blinkingly back at him until he continues. “’Buy this expensive pink car, Viktor.’ ‘Get Makkachin a sweater from Burberry, she’ll appreciate it.’ ‘Decide to be the celebrity spokesperson for a campaign about STDs, Viktor, it’ll do wonders for your reputation.’”

“I remember that commercial,” Yuuri snorts. “You pretended you had chlamydia.”

Viktor falls back on the bed in noisy agony, hands to his face and a chorus of tragic violins starting up. “I can’t believe you saw. It was for the sake of the _youth_ , Yuuri!”

“It’s not like it deterred people from dating you,” Yuuri feels obligated to point out.

He curls his fingers beneath Viktor’s to peel them from his smile, his cheeks, lays so their noses almost brush.

“Viktor,” he says, and the music thrums between them.

“Yes?” Viktor asks lowly, holding his gaze. He tightens their grip on each other. “Anything you need, Yuuri.”

“I’m passing out. I’m going to sleep now.”

“Oh,” Viktor realizes, like this is new information he should have anticipated. “Are you…? Should I stay?”

Yuuri’s body feels drained. Cleansed. He couldn’t panic more now if he tried. “I’m okay.”

His coach’s eyes narrow. “…Should I stay?”

Yuuri _wants_ to be beside him, no matter how exhausted, and he’s sure it’s embarrassingly evident in the way his music is weaving _On Love:_ _Eros_ and _Agape_ together into one. Yuuri will always, always want him.

“Stay with me,” Yuuri commands hesitantly. “Please.”

They settle awkwardly, carefully. Viktor doesn’t treat him as though he’s fragile, just shifts so he spoons the Japanese man, one arm loosely thrown across his waist, the other tugging uncomfortably at his own sweater.

“Just take it off,” Yuuri sighs, eyes closed. Then everything is warmer. Hazy. His breath settles in his chest, floating, and sleep looms close and numbing, but won’t overcome him.

“I can project again,” Viktor offers softly into the dark. Maybe it’s been minutes, or hours, or moments. “A lullaby.” Yuuri shakes his head, traces his fingers over the Russian’s pale knuckles on his hip.

“I just need your sound.” _Just you, as you are._

_Just you._

* * *

 

Yuuri always treats Viktor’s presence around him like a gift. It is. But Viktor is the one receiving it.

The Katsukis have unofficially adopted him. It’s still hard, to walk in on lazy weekend mornings to them making family breakfast, their music stretching and blending familiarly, an orchestra warming up. Mornings always comes to this, and he stands behind the kitchen door, listens to the muffled notes and clinking dishes in the soft light of dawn. Sometimes he goes for a walk with Makkachin. Sometimes he goes back to his room alone.

He would’ve gone back to his room today, but Yuuri opens the door.

“I could hear you standing out here,” he says, a tilt to his dark head, “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Please come in,” Mari sighs, “Yuuri’s music keeps cutting out like it expects something else to fill in the empty spaces and it’s kind of grating.” Peacefully, Toshiya nods agreement.

Hiroko hands him a bowl. “Stay,” she hums warmly. He sits, his knee pressing to Yuuri’s beneath the table, sound swirling around him.

Viktor stays. 

* * *

  _And w_ _e're back. I'm your host for the groundbreaking Barcelona Grand Prix! This exhibition is a pair skate, ladies and gentleman, and listen to that projection, that’s perfection and flawless harmony—what’s that? Update, Lambiel says they’re—they’re not projecting. Good god, ladies and gentleman, we are witnessing the first pair skate with natural music! I don’t know how they expected this to work! The chance that they’d be harmonizing together and on the same song, and at this volume, is nearly impossible. This took immense faith! But if anyone could do it, it’s five time champion Viktor Nikiforov and the FS world record holder, Katsuki Yuuri. So listen closely, folks. Today—today we are witnesses to the making of history!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director: And we’re rolling.  
> Viktor: Hi teens, I’m international superstar and playboy Viktor Nikiforov, and I’m here to tell you that safe sex is good sex. Really, though, any sex with my husband Katsuki Yuuri would be good sex—  
> Director: Okay, cut. He did it again. Get ready for take 35, guys.  
> Yuuri, hyperventilating in corner: I cannot believe I agreed to this  
> Hi friends. Thanks for your patience in waiting for this chapter. I am a student and thus apparently not in control of my own life. As always, I can’t express fully how grateful I am for you reading and commenting and giving me soulmate idea fuel! Say hello/interrogate me on [tumblr](https://kiaronna.tumblr.com/) if you’d like (somebody already found me and I was embarrassingly excited, so I guess I should actually link to it). Come chat with me, if you’d please!  
> Ooh, credit for this chapter’s music concept goes to several special people that offered me music ideas that I took and shamelessly rolled into one: Colt_kun, rhaena, and Defiant-Dreams (baterina_1234) from AO3. Also, Principessa Luna Fiorella and Fandoms-of-Legolas from FFnet. Thanks so much for your suggestions! I couldn't write the same ideas without you.  
> PS. This fic is being translated into French [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12332927/1/Ivre-de-toi) and I'm so excited I could die. Thanks to the lovely Silu-chan on FFnet!


	8. Substitutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this AU, a regular animal will find you and essentially attach itself to you, becoming your animal guide. It will do everything in its power to ensure that you two come together as soulmates; if you're out walking your animal guide, it might drag you to an attractive stranger.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Rather than me, have Makkachin play with that other poodle that’s always hanging around the onsen,” Yuri Plisetsky says one day, and Viktor just tilts his head, eyes narrowing.  
> “Yurio. There is no other poodle at Yu-topia.”  
> Yuri befriends a dog that nobody else seems to realize exists.  
> (A collection of soulmate AUs. 8. When soulmates need animal guides to find each other and one is lost, the universe has to compensate. Substitutions are made.)
> 
> Also, hey friends. Warning: if you don’t like Otabek/Yurio, you won’t like a small portion of this chapter. But Yuri is fifteen, y’all, so literally nothing happens except essentially what occurred in the show.

Yuri Plisetsky may be rude, but he doesn’t usually open doors in houses that aren’t his. Still, there had been insistent scratching at this door in Yu-topia, and even if he knew cats were far superior to dogs he had no interest in letting Makkachin be trapped in a room. God knows Viktor would whine and send her to an overpriced grooming salon if he ever found out about her ‘traumatizing’ experience. So Yurio opens it.

The dog that slinks out isn’t Makkachin. It’s far too small. As it winds around his legs Yuri is hit with the heady scent of incense and overripe fruit. The room stretches out dark and empty behind the door’s edge, just the black outline of a cabinet on the far side of the space. It’s eerily lonely. Whoever locked the dog in was a fool.

Yuri shuts the door.

“Dogs are dumb,” he tells the poodle, who doesn’t seem to take it to heart. Instead, it follows him—on his morning run without Katsudon and the forgetful idiot, back to the market stall to search for more tiger print clothes, and even to bed. “Dogs are okay,” he tells the poodle on the second day he lets it sleep with him. In reply, it pants softly into his covers.

It’s an odd dog. Unlike Makkachin, who has no problem with bowling him over and yapping, this creature is quiet and calm, padding down the halls soundlessly. He shows no interest in the healthy snacks Yuri sneaks back to his room before bed, or the sticks the teen throws for him.

“What kind of dog are you?” The kind that’s like a cat. Yuri buys a brush from the corner store and spends half an hour working through the animal’s curls every evening, sitting in his splits. “Go back to your owner,” he scowls one day as it makes circles on his futon. “I’m sure they miss you.” The pup snuffles at his face instead.

After a particularly frustrating day where Nikiforov continuously and inexplicably rejects his Agape, it’s the poodle who lets him holler Russian curse words into its curls. It’s the poodle who slows his heart rate, who licks his cheek with a cool tongue.

It’s the poodle that drags Katsudon’s poster pile out from under the bed to him.

“You’re _kidding_ ,” he howls in amusement, going through the collection on his bed, “Katsudon’s _obsessed_!”

It’s something he doesn’t think Viktor realizes the extent of. Yuri could embarrass Katsudon to no end— it’s odd, being the one in control, having that kind of influence. Yuri shouldn’t be invested in the relationship of the two most obnoxious skaters on the planet (besides JJ). Katsudon isn’t the assertive drunk at the banquet, not quite, and Viktor isn’t the hazy and unfocused man he was before that banquet, either. The dog nudges at his knee, nips at the posters. _Don’t_ , he tells himself stubbornly.

Yuri is invested.

* * *

 

“Makkachin needs a friend,” the old man pouts, “She’s stuck here all day. Why don’t you show her some love, Yuri?”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “Makkachin is spoiled. You leave her alone for two hours a day, max. Also, why don’t you just have her play with that other poodle that’s always hanging around the onsen, rather than me?”

Viktor tilts his head, purses his lips in question.

“Yurio, there is no other dog at Yu-topia.”

Typical hero of Russia. “You never pay attention to anything, stupid. Is your eyesight that poor?” The champion shrugs. “Get some glasses, old man.”

“Oh, I will,” he says with a vague smile, and Yuri _almost_ suppresses the urge to scream, because Katsudon is visible through the window, ruffled hair and stupid glasses and all. Nikiforov is on his feet and meandering out towards the other man, probably before his addled brain has caught up. Yuri swears that if the Russian so much as touches Katsudon’s glasses he’s going to—and there Nikiforov goes, plucking them off. He’s lucky the pig is too blind to see his stupid face, lucky that his sad efforts to reclaim his glasses mostly involve fumbling at Viktor’s skin. Viktor Nikiforov is a dying legend, a man who threw his glass heart to someone that didn’t realize he’d caught it, and he is _delighted_.

Yuri hates them both.

“They like each other,” he tells the dog that night, “And if Katsudon wins the competition because Nikiforov wants to make out with him, I am going to drown them both in the hot springs.”

The dog is a good listener. He doesn’t mind that Yuri kicks in his sleep, or that he cries after hanging up from a phone call with his Grandpa—he just wiggles close, puts a paw on Yuri’s chest. Like he’s used to crying. Like crying isn’t a weakness.

Yuri wonders briefly if the dog is his animal guide, if he’ll someday drag Yuri on the end of his leash to the person he’s intended to be with, his _soulmate_. Everyone has one, a regular animal or pet that comes to them at some point in life and _stays_ , nudges softly until the soulmates are together, have fulfilled destiny. Yuri doesn’t like dogs, never thought his spirit guide could be one. But he thinks he could tolerate this.

It’s two days before Hot Springs on Ice that Yuri snaps a picture of his new friend, curled up pleasantly atop the foot of his bed, just before the break of dawn, and he goes to post it after practice.

The covers are empty. In the photo, the covers are empty.

It’s April, but cold seeps into his room. This is not his animal guide. Not _his_.

Yuri Plisetsky is only fifteen. Trying desperately to provide for his family. He has to focus. So he shuts his door at night, and when Katsudon wins Hot Springs on Ice, Yuri goes back to Russia. Then, he doesn’t think about it. Desperately, fiercely, he doesn’t think about it.

* * *

 

Yuri tries hard not to think about Katsudon and Viktor’s relationship, too, but it’s difficult when their kiss is flashing on every major news outlet screen.

Yuuri picks up on the first ring of Yurio’s Facetime.

“Hi, Yurio,” he says quietly.

“You owe me a new pair of eyes,” Yuri snaps.

“I miss you too,” Katsudon chuckles.

“I can’t believe you let him kiss you. He has three brain cells.”

“Four, actually, you just think it’s three because one is dedicated to skating.” Sometimes Yuri forgets that Katsudon can be _funny_. Yet another reason why Viktor Nikiforov, hopeless idiot, will never deserve him. “Um. Yuri.”

The saying of his name is oddly vulnerable.

“What?”

“Were you… there. When Viktor was guided to his soulmate?”

Yuri almost throws his phone. “Pig, why would Viktor kiss you like that if he wasn’t your soulmate?”

The other Yuuri sighs, his eyes everywhere but his phone screen, and Yuri is furiously aware that he is about to get a Life Is Complicated When You’re An Adult But Someday You’ll Understand talk that he _doesn’t need_. Those two are the only ones that need to learn, not him.

“Don’t answer that. I can see in your stupid face that you don’t think it’s you.” He takes a deep breath. “Viktor hasn’t been guided before. Everyone knows that Makkachin has to be his spirit guide. No ordinary poodle lives to her age, and Viktor’s ridiculously attached. Who does Makkachin love, pig?”

“Viktor.”

Yurio jabs at the phone with an enraged finger. “YOU, dimwit. Makkachin likes you.”

Katsudon’s face is an unflattering shade of pink. “I… yeah. But _my_ spirit guide—my spirit guide has never shown up. So we can’t… be. We can’t be soulmates.”

“So who Viktor’s guide animal thinks is his soulmate doesn’t matter at all?”

“Makkachin is a sweet dog,” Yuuri protests.

Makkachin had peed on all of Viktor’s previous lovers, and chewed up their shoes. Yuri does not tell Katsudon this, because Makkachin’s affection isn’t the problem. Katsudon’s head is the problem.

“It’s you, pig, get some confidence.” He scowls, tugs uncomfortably at his hood. “Don’t give up on this,” he says, “Viktor needs you.” Yuuri laughs softly at that over the phone, and Yuri bristles. “Don’t you dare disappoint me, Katsudon.”

The Japanese man is an idiot, but he’s a determined one.

“I’ll try.”

* * *

 

Calling Viktor is always a gamble, because the legend either rambles pointlessly about his life for hours on end or sits in short, mild silence for most of the conversation, inputting dramatics only when he languidly summons up the energy.

Today is a rambling day.

“Shut up,” Yuri says as Viktor is outlining the exact way Katsudon flexes his pinky during a skating move, or maybe it’s about how warm the man’s neck is. Yuri stopped paying attention during the second passionate rant about Katsuki’s bedhead. “I have a question.”

“Ask away, Yurio,” the man chirps.

“The pig’s your soulmate, isn’t he?”

The champion’s face is in a careful, tense smile. “Of course. Makkachin won’t leave him alone. She nudges me towards him at every moment. We’ve all known that for months.”

“Katsudon knows that?”

“Oh, I _showed_ him just last night,” Viktor sighs, and Yuri jams the ‘end call’ button on his phone so fast the screen almost cracks. He very intentionally plays a violent videogame for an hour before snatching his phone back up.

 _You’re an idiot_ , he texts, _you and Katsudon don’t speak the same language_.

If Viktor doesn’t get it, doesn’t fix it, it’s not on Yuri Plisetsky. He is not a matchmaker. He is not a love guru. He is just a very frustrated fifteen year old who hasn’t even been guided to his own soulmate yet.

It is not on him.

He texts _the old man wants to talk to you_ to Katsuki anyway.

* * *

 

When Yuri is young, one summer of practice is spent living at his father’s apartment. His father is handsome, charming.

And distant.

“A kitten followed me to ballet practice today,” Yuri says, “an orange one.”

“As long as it doesn’t follow you home.” His father’s brow is tight. “I don’t like strays.”

Yuri had cared about practicing, then. He was young and practicing was the way his mama would look at him, would smile at him in pride. His father never cared for those things; his father never cared for much of anything.

Even Yuri.

It was the last summer with his father. He doesn’t remember anything beyond sore feet, the barre, and an orange kitten purring beneath his hand in an alleyway.

* * *

 

At the Rostelecom Cup, Yuri Plisetsky regrets everything. He used to wish the pair hadn’t kissed on the lips at the Cup of China; now he knows that the alternative, Viktor kissing Katsudon _literally everywhere else_ , is so much worse. They’re on each other at every possible moment.

They’re lucky they’re both men, because if they had to separate even to use the bathroom Katsudon would probably cry at least three times a day and Viktor would be reduced to a moaning pile of designer clothes on the ground.

Yuri _hates_ them.

He still shares his coach, when he sees the look on both of their faces after the short program. _Makkachin could be dying_. Makkachin is the least annoying piece of Viktor Nikiforov, Yuri thinks. He texts Viktor to ask for updates when he’s not practicing that evening, sends him shots of the piggy in return. A guide animal dying is nothing anyone should go through—most cultures believe a guide animal can see your soul, in order to guide you to your soulmate, but the Russians are among the few that believe they can touch it, that they are an integral part of it.

Katsudon makes it to the GPF. Yuri’s not sure he’s going to make it back to the hotel, though, what with his dazed expression. This is a man that needs guidance.

“Yakov,” Yuri says, “I’m gonna go talk to Katsuki.”

“You don’t even know where he is,” Yakov sputters in a growl, “What do you mean you’re going to go talk to him? Weren’t you just running away from one of his hugs?”

Yuri had run, because the thought of being embraced by that vacant face made him shudder. But thinking of Katsudon, all alone after his performance, is somehow even worse. Yuri paces (jogs) the area outside of the rink, peeks around corners with no results; Katsudon has disappeared. The bag of pirozhki is hot in his hand, but cooling in the snowy air, and Yuri is ready to kick at the ground and leave a fifth scathing voicemail on the Katsudon’s phone when the bag is suddenly yanked from his grip.

He spins to find the culprit-- it’s a dog, bounding away with its delicious prize, and Yuri is hollering insults and threats of the pound at its bouncing tail as he gives chase. He rounds a corner, still yelling, and suddenly Katsudon is there, motionless under a streetlamp just a block away.

The poodle sets the pirozhki bag down on the sidewalk. It’s small, with warm eyes.

“Thank you,” Yuri tells it, and before he can do much else it’s padding off into the shadows.

Yuri picks the pirozhki up, and goes to the Japanese man.

“You two shouldn’t ever be apart,” he says when Katsudon is nibbling at the last bite of his pirozhki, “It’s _so freaking annoying_.”

Katsudon’s eyes are glazed. “I wish we didn’t ever have to be apart,” he replies quietly.

“You _don’t_ ,” Yuri snaps.

“After the Grand Prix Final.” Katsudon pulls back up his cold mask, looking up at the falling snow in the infinitely black sky, “After the Grand Prix, Viktor will come back to Russia. Take care of him, won’t you?”

“Gross,” Yuri replies, “do it yourself.”

* * *

 

Everything changes in Barcelona. They mostly change the moment he climbs behind Otabek onto the rumbling machine, and escapes.

“How did you find me?” He asks the leather jacket when the motorcycle slows to a stop. The other skater pulls off his helmet, shakes out his hair.

“I didn’t.” Otabek gestures up, and Yuri startles when he sees it, the golden eagle that swoops to perch on a streetlamp. Otabek’s guide animal. “She did.” Otabek’s _guide animal_.

“Shit,” Yuri says. This is not what he expected. Yakov is going to throw a fit.

“Problem?” Otabek asks calmly.

Yuri doesn’t hate the shape of him, the rumble of his voice. And Yuri hates a lot of things.

“I know a good sightseeing spot,” the older skater offers.

“Fine.”

Yuri doesn’t remember much of his childhood. Apparently, Otabek does. By the end of their conversation, he’s no longer bristling at every word.

“Are you going to be my friend or not?”

Yuri’s eyes narrow. “Aren’t you going to ask me to be your soulmate or something gooey like that?”

Otabek doesn’t sigh, doesn’t let anything disturb the calm that constantly surrounds him.

“No,” he says plainly, “You’re fifteen. And according to you, we’ve just met for the first time. So. Will you be my friend or not?”

They shake hands. On the lookout’s railing, the golden eagle preens.

* * *

 

Yakov wanted him to be in the warm up area, but he sees the poodle by the hall door. Of all of the times—right before his free skate. But he just can’t leave this alone.

“I need a quick walk,” he informs Yakov, who is all too happy to oblige.

He doesn’t find the poodle, but Viktor finds them in the hallway. Viktor finds them, and begs the ice tiger to set things right.

Yuri wins gold for all three of them.

* * *

 

The Katsukis welcome him back into his old room when he arrives early for the wedding, but he can’t sleep.

There’s scratching at his door. Yurio lays wide awake, and doesn’t open it.

It takes him time, the next day, to find the room he first found the dog locked in. All the inn rooms look the same in the daylight. Only one smells of burning incense. Only one has a shrine.

“What was your dog’s name, Katsudon?”

“Vicchan,” is the soft and trembling reply. But nothing can make the smile disappear from his face, not when he’s a day away from marrying Viktor Nikiforov, his soulmate.

Yuri finds the room again the next night, slips away from the reception in the main room of the onsen when Katsudon and Viktor are too drunk to notice.

“Vicchan,” he says in the dark. He hears muffled laughter from down the hall, the echoing clinking of plates. “Vicchan.”

The poodle comes when called. Emerges from the shadows, steps soundless on the tatami mats. Yuri scratches him behind the ears, rubs at his belly in the moonlight. Yuuri had stuck a single blue rose from the bouquet in his lapel after the ceremony, patted Yuri’s long blond hair. He sets the flower on the little shrine, lights a stick of incense and watches the embers glow.

“They’re married now, you know.” The poodle props his legs up on the shrine, sniffs at the rose. “It’s terrible. They’re disgusting. They’re already planning on adopting three kids and a litter of puppies together. I don’t think they’ll ever stop being happy.”

Vicchan nuzzles against his leg, saturates the air with sweet fruit. Rotting fruit. It makes Yuri’s eyes water.

“This is your fault,” the teen accuses with a gritted smile, and the warm eyes just stare back at him. He walks down the hall to his own bed, and the dog climbs in with him, lays weightless across his legs. Yuri thinks of Katsudon crying at the altar, of the expression of _worship_ on the champion’s idiot face when they said their vows, of Makkachin barking happily from the front pew. He thinks of soulmates and Otabek and things to come, of kittens in alleyways and the plaintive cry of a golden eagle.

“You’re a good boy, Vicchan.” Cold fur between Yuri’s trembling fingers. “You’re a good boy.”

The covers are empty when he wakes up. Everything is warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know why I write these things. I really only just make myself very emotional.  
> Thanks for everyone's support and comments. They make me smile!  
> Leftawkwardly gets all of the credit for coming up with the animal guide soulmate AU. Many thanks to you!  
> If anybody is curious, Otabek visited one of Kazakhstan’s nature reserves as a kid on a school trip and came back with a freaking golden eagle that wouldn’t leave his side. Otabek’s mom was just like, “Fine. Make sure it doesn’t eat your sister’s guide animal.” The Altins are the chillest of the chill.  
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://kiaronna.tumblr.com/)!


	9. Every Time, With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor is trapped in a time loop during the Sochi GPF. And, unfortunately, in his coach's body.  
> “I know exactly what you’re doing, I’ve done it a million times,” Viktor says, with Yakov's voice, “don’t try to pull this disappearing act on me. You heard what I said. Now wait for me to come talk to you, Vitya.”  
> “No, no, service is terrible in here! If it’s anything about practice, text me.”  
> “You—“  
> “Bye, Yakov!”  
> There’s only a dial tone.  
> He stares, stunned, at his own image fading from the phone screen into black. That teasingly vacant tone, that dismissal of his coach, the cheerful greeting…  
> In this time loop, he’ll be dealing with Viktor Nikiforov. He’ll be dealing with… himself. And, apparently, a soulmate that won't reveal his true identity.  
> A groundhog day/body swap soulmate AU, where you switch bodies and the universe won't let time go forward until the soulmates meet in the "right way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: you are about to deal with a lot of Viktor Nikiforov. Like double the amount of Viktor Nikiforov. And with... Yuuri. Kind of.

 Viktor Nikiforov knows that he is beginning to find certain parts of figure skating monotonous.

Same banquets. Same cheers. Same rival skaters, sometimes with different faces and slightly different personalities, but most of them are the same. Sometimes he finds himself confused about what competition he’s winning, what fancy hotel he’s staying at this week, how long it’s been since he saw Christophe or his parents. The days bleed weakly into each other in pastel watercolor, until they’re dirty gray, gray, _gray_.

But even he notices the difference when he wakes the morning after the short program at the Sochi GPF and the blindingly red alarm clock at his bedside tells him it is, yet again, the day after the short program. Well, little machines break. His hotel room is flipped; the door and bathroom opposite where he’d believed. Well, he gets disoriented sometimes.

It’s impossible to reason out what happens at the mirror.

“Yakov!” He yelps when he catches a glimpse, and Yakov looks equally surprised to see him in the bathroom. When Viktor jumps away, so does Yakov.

Viktor looks at his hands. They’re large, too pink. Wrinkled. Every step he takes is so heavy, so different from dancing in his own lithe athlete’s body, only slightly past its prime. _Yakov has arthritis in his knees_ , he notes painfully.

He’s sitting on the bed, wondering briefly at his own situation, when his mind brings forth tendrils of old conversations. Yakov had been obligated to give him every kind of talk when he turned fourteen, and after one where he was briefly instructed to _never_ follow a fangirl to a private spot, there was another. _Vitya, sometimes when soulmates meet they don’t do it… right. The universe gives them as many chances as it takes to perfect that encounter, throws them around in time until they work it out. But,_ he had emphasized, waving a finger in front of an enraptured younger Viktor’s face, _sometimes it knows you can’t fix it on your own. A kiss is the only thing that’ll get you moving again._

Viktor had foolishly assumed he’d meet his soulmate the right way the _first_ time.

He also had foolishly assumed he’d get to live that encounter from within his own body. Not as Yakov, not trapped in a time loop.

But now, this—

There is a vibrating from the bedside table. Viktor almost feels wrong, invading Yakov’s privacy, though he knows his coach has never bothered with the hassle of a password.

There’s a picture of his own face, sunglasses on and chin and lips jutted out. _Vitya_ , the screen declares. He picks up.

“Yakov~” his own voice sings through the phone. “Guess who beat you to the rink today.”

“Who are you?” If he’s in Yakov’s body, then…is Yakov in his? He shudders. Yakov would probably immediately start eating healthier, tone down some of the motions in Viktor’s program that he calls ‘too flashy and sexual.’

“That hurts,” his voice complains right at him. “It’s me, your favorite figure skater, even though you don’t play favorites.”

“Stay where you are,” Viktor commands. Maybe if he sets his sights on his own body, he can work this situation out. “I need to talk to you.”

“What?” There’s shuffling in the background. “Yakov, I’m sorry, I can’t hear you very well. Anyway, I think Christophe and I are off to watch the ladies short program! And then we’ll be out lunching before we practice at 3 this afternoon, so I’ll see you later!”

Viktor scoffs lightly, a disbelieving smile forming on his face. “I know exactly what you’re doing, I’ve done it a million times,” he says, “don’t try to pull that on me. You heard what I said. Now wait for me.”

“No, no, service is terrible in here! If it’s anything about practice, text me.”

“You—“

“Bye, Yakov~”

There’s only a dial tone.

He stares, stunned, at his own image fading from the screen into black. Yakov is _not_ in his body, no. That teasingly vacant tone, that dismissal of his coach, the cheerful greeting…

In this time loop, he’ll be dealing with Viktor Nikiforov. He’ll be dealing with… himself.

But he’s dealing with Viktor, a topic he _should,_ by all accounts, be familiar with. How badly could it go?

 

* * *

 

The moment he is honest with Vitya—that’s what he’s decided to call the odd other presentation of himself—he finds himself hooked up to wires in a hospital and scheduled for three brain scans, courtesy of his own money.

“Nothing to worry about, Yakov!” Vitya pats his shoulder, pulls up the sheets.

 _Oh_ , he thinks gravely, _that’s what I look like when I’m lying_. He’s seen it in the mirror before. It’s different, watching it happen from Yakov’s eyes. Vitya makes no eye contact, sweeps icy blue eyes across the ceiling lightly, smiles with all of his teeth.

“I’m being serious,” Viktor as Yakov says, “we’re going to meet our soulmate. Try to be prepared.”

Vitya stays at the hospital until bedtime, instead.

When Viktor slams his hand on the alarm the next morning, the date hasn’t changed.

“Hi, Yakov!” Vitya answers when he calls his own number, “What is it? Didn’t we agree on practice at three?”

“Did you take me to the hospital yesterday?”

Vitya pauses. “No… should I take you now?”

“Definitely not,” he decides, and hangs up. But he can’t help himself, has to take the clear course of action. He calls Vitya back, and the explanation rolls off his tongue more convincingly than the first time around.

Twenty minutes later an ambulance arrives at the hotel.

“This,” he says as Vitya tries to hand feed him crackers in the hospital bed, “is really not necessary. I promise.”

“Everything’s going to be fine, Yakov,” Vitya lies, and presses a cracker to his lips.

Convincing the other man that they’re the same person with some piece of private information shouldn’t be so difficult. But it would be. There is little that Yakov doesn’t know—or, more accurately, that he might not have accidentally confessed when Yakov picked him up from a drunken bender.

“Another,” Vitya insists.

Viktor, despite buying all of his own merchandise, dressing immaculately, and living alone, does not actually enjoy spending time with himself. This is why he goes to bars, goes out with Christophe when possible, fawns over Makkachin, spends time at the crowded rink even when Yakov pushes him off the ice, why he is the best of the best in figure skating. When everyone else is looking at him, it lets him become who they want him to be. It lets him exist as _something_ , anything, something to be loved and admired. That’s easier than existing solely as himself.

He’s growing weary of easy. Of distant love and admiration. Of being alone as a necessity for skating, for pursuing his passion. He wants to be loved, actually loved, and maybe his soulmate…

Watching a past version of Viktor Nikiforov from two days ago, hunched in the hospital room with his knees crossed primly and his phone held aloft in his hand, Viktor feels an odd combination of pity and dislike.

 _So,_ he realizes, _I can’t easily tell myself what’s going on, or Yakov gets thrown in a hospital._

No, he’ll have to rely on Nikiforov wit and charm, and Vitya’s unaware cooperation.

 

* * *

 

Vitya is not cooperating.

It is twenty repeats of the same day before he finds a way to consistently convince Vitya to meet up with him before their scheduled practice at three. He only starts raising his voice at loop 15, and only then because it’s himself.

Raising his voice just makes Vitya more comfortable, more blithe in his dealings. _Oh_ , Viktor realizes, _I’m Yakov. Yakov always yells_.

Viktor figures out on round twenty that he has to settle for bribery.

“I,” he huffs in his older body, scanning the crowd like a drowning man, “I cannot believe this.”

Suddenly a figure with sunglasses and a swishing brown coat is making their way towards him, all confidence and smooth voice and _god_ , Viktor wishes he could just shake himself and make his past self understand that things are at stake, that he doesn’t have to keep living the way he is, floating empty atop a pool of his own successes and expectations.

“Why did you need me, Yakov? Is everything okay?” He leans in, smile teasing, and whispers, “is it Plisetsky? I knew he’d be a handful.”

“No, no. Who have you met today?” He asks, because if he can figure this out, then maybe he can determine his soulmate, and then… well, then he’s not sure.

Vitya smiles. Shrugs. Today, for him, is a day like any other day. Nothing is particularly memorable for him, anymore.

Viktor quickly realizes that he is going to be of little help.

He reads books on soulmate looping at the Sochi library, unhelpful ones. Some days he watches Vitya at practice, and hopes. Every face he passes could belong to his soulmate. None of them seem to stand out.

The next morning, he texts Vitya and, upon later consideration, Yuri Plisetsky. _I’m taking the day off_.

He wanders through Sochi, and wonders what he is meant to do with all of this time, but no direction.

 

* * *

 

Viktor has lost track of how many loops he’s gone through, how many times he’s lived out the same day, when he first witnesses the accident about to happen.

It’s a little girl, stepping out onto the Sochi streets when she shouldn’t, a truck careening for her.

 _No_ , Viktor thinks, _no, no_ —

But then there’s a man, of medium height and build, brown eyes flashing with purpose as he appears from out of nowhere, moving faster than Viktor could ever hope to.

He watches, startled, as the dark haired man yanks with a graceful confidence on the back of the child’s coat, pulling them from the street edge up onto the safety of the sidewalk. The truck passing by narrowly misses the child, but douses them in a spray of slush.

 _Thank god_ , he thinks, rushing towards them. He arrives just in time to hear the dark haired man groan,

“Not again.”

Viktor is left to puzzle this for a few moments while the brown eyes rove critically over his and the child’s clothing.

“We’ll be soaked for the rest of the day. Sorry, Svetlana.”

“Wow,” the child just whispers in a hush. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m—“ he stutters for a moment, corrects himself with clear awkwardness. “I’m a reporter.”

“I’m Svetlana,” the child announces, like the reporter doesn’t clearly already know her name, like they’ve never met each other before, then, “thank you.” The two stare at each other for another few moments.

“Russian?” The little girl questions. The reporter shakes his head, then says in careful, terribly accented Russian,

“Go to your mom.” Svetlana beams, skitters off, but Viktor can’t pull his eyes away from the man, who is now wringing out his coat.

“Excuse me,” he tries, and the man jumps.

“I—oh, hello. Are you normally… on the street at this time?” He squints at Viktor briefly, like he has bad eyesight, before sighing and returning to shivering in his soaked clothing.

“Earlier, you said… Again?” Viktor questions delicately. “What did you mean by… again? Or is it your habit, pulling children out of the street?”

“That should be everyone’s habit,” the reporter mutters, and then looks away. “I suppose I can tell you. It’s not like it’ll matter come tomorrow anyways.”

“Because,” Viktor says, excitement exploding in his chest, “because tomorrow isn’t going to happen?”

The brown eyes swing back to him, the reporter’s entire body freezing.

“You,” he whispers, “you’re trapped in the time loop too.”

“I am,” he agrees easily. _Someone else. Someone else!_ The other man’s face is taut, energy directed inwards, thoughts swimming in his eyes. He covers them with a hand and mumbles tensely in another language.

“What’s that?” Viktor asks, almost hesitant to hear the answer. _Never mind, I’m not trapped in a time loop, it’s just you, and now you’re back to where you started! You’re a lunatic!_

“Thank god,” he translates shakily. “It’s been… weeks. I thought I was crazy.”

“Not crazy,” Viktor confirms, “it’s a soulmate loop.”

The other man visibly stiffens, running a distressed hand through his already spiky hair.

“I know,” he murmurs quietly, after a few moments.

“Well.” It’s odd, to study this man, all graceful flinching and brief words. “I know I seem like an old man, but this isn’t my actual body. Shall we… go get a coffee? Or do you already have a lover?” Not everyone subscribes to the idea of soulmates. Viktor wouldn’t be surprised, with his luck in love, if his soulmate is one of them.

“A lov— _no_ ,” his soulmate corrects brutally, eyes wide. “No, no. I wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t, even if I tried or wanted to. I do have… someone I admire, but that’s a fantasy, not actuality.”

“A fantasy?” Viktor raises his eyebrows.

“He has no idea I exist.” He licks his lips. “Um, yet. And I probably shouldn’t have—caffeine, unless…” he trails off, staring at his hand incomprehensibly.

“If you don’t want coffee, just say so.”

“Tea would be nice!” It comes out like an apology. Viktor will take it. They meander through the cold, the Russian leading, the reporter checking his watch on occasion. When Viktor notices, raises an eyebrow, he taps at the watch and blurts, “I have a schedule. I don’t know if I should break it or not.”

“A… schedule?”

“There are a lot of accidents, like that little girl, so when I started noticing them I had to do something.”

“Every day,” Viktor begins, eyes widening, “every day since the time loop started?” A brief nod. “Listen,” he sighs, “I don’t think we’re getting out of the loop anytime soon. Unfortunately. I think we’d have to work together to do that. Not that what you’re doing isn’t admirable, but… if you want to actually save people, someday, we’ll have to exit the loop. Spare me a few days of your time?”

The reporter bites his lip. “Okay.”

They settle into a coffee shop. One of Viktor’s favorites in Sochi. He says so, sliding off his hat, his scarf, Yakov’s heavy tan coat. Excitement is blooming in his chest—his _soulmate_ , sitting in front of him with soft eyes and a pleasant demeanor, as though this is something he could have. As Yakov, there’s no chance of romance of any kind, but he feels camaraderie for the other man, a hope for friendship.

“Mr… Feltsman?” The voice is small.

Viktor laughs. “You’ve heard of Yakov?”

The reporter fiddles with his bag. “Almost everyone’s heard of him.” Viktor begs to differ. Everyone has heard of Viktor Nikiforov—his coach, not necessarily, especially if he’s an American, like his accent seems to indicate.

“Yes, well, I’m Yakov. For now.” There is a buzzing from his trouser pocket. “Hold on just a moment,” he says apologetically, pulling it out and setting it on the table. _Vitya_ , the screen reads, silly picture of himself and all. “Vitya,” he says in Russian into the phone, “I’m busy with a sponsor. What is it?”

“It’s three,” Vitya’s voice comes out petulantly. “You’ve never missed a practice during a competition before, Yakov. Do I need to come find you and make sure you’re okay?”

“I have a new coaching mentality,” he replies into the phone, “It’s very hands-off. I trust you to be responsible, Vitya.” Viktor tries not to laugh at his own words. He does not trust himself to be responsible. Even in skating practice he tends to push the limits.

“You don’t sound well,” Vitya remarks suspiciously. “You seem so… calm. Yakov?”

“I _do not_ need to go to a hospital.” He hangs up, gaze flitting back to the reporter, brain tripping hesitantly back into English. “Sorry. If I didn’t pick up it’d be asking for trouble.”

“You—ah—Viktor Nikiforov?” The reporter looks pale. “I mean, of course you… you’re his coach. Of course you talk to him.”

Viktor blows on his steaming coffee. He wonders if it will taste the same, in Yakov’s body. His coach had always shunned the complex flavors that Viktor favored.

“I think we should introduce ourselves properly,” he says. “You know who I am, now, actually.” He holds out his hand. “Viktor Nikiforov, nice to finally meet you.” The reporter doesn’t take his hand, just gapes at him with a look akin to horror. “Did you come into town for the Grand Prix Final in skating, or?”

There is no response, just heavy breathing and darting glances towards the coffee shop door. Viktor steeples his fingers, leans forward, and nudges at the other man’s shoe beneath the table. This does not seem to help the meltdown.

“Um,” he finally breathes out after nearly three minutes of silence, fidgeting, “yes, I’m in Sochi for the GPF.”

“Oh, did you attend because you’re my fan?” Viktor teases easily, and it comes out from Yakov’s throat a gravelly hum. “It’d be fun, I think, to have a soulmate that liked to watch skating.”

“Well, yes—ah, no, not… exactly.”

He flushes and looks painfully shy, an odd look on a man who clearly dresses boldly and possesses both a booming voice and smile lines, even at his young age. Perhaps Viktor’s actual soulmate doesn’t share these characteristics. A burning curiosity seats itself in his throat, a desperation to _learn_.

“Just to let you know,” the reporter says suddenly, seriously, “my, ah, sex isn’t different in this body. I’m… a man.”

Viktor laughs, throwing Yakov’s gray head back. “I like to be surprised, I admit, and you’ve definitely done that today, but telling me you’re a man doesn’t do it.”

“Oh,” Viktor’s soulmate mumbles, eyes wide and shining, “oh. All right.”

“So? Is your body and past self running around living out the same day over and over again, just like mine?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘running around.’” He flinches. “I’m mostly inside my room. But yes.”

“What? Why?” There’s no response, and Viktor tires of waiting for it.  “You never told me your name, by the way.”

“You can call me Morooka.”

Viktor narrows his eyes. “I can _call_ you that?” Savagery is different in Yakov’s voice, too, less velvet and more steel.

“That’s my name,” Morooka replies softly, desperately. Viktor does not believe him. Viktor is also not going to give his soulmate another meltdown by telling him so. He takes a sip of his coffee instead, elegantly and childishly makes a face.

“This is too sweet,” he chokes out, a curl to his lips. Morooka laughs, taps at his own cup of green tea, looks down to the table.

“The body takes getting used to,” he admits, a quirk to his smile.

“Yes?” Viktor prompts. Morooka ducks his head.

“This body is allergic to _so_ many foods,” he confesses. “I spent the first three days in the hospital until I worked it out. I thought I was going to get myself killed.”

Viktor laughs, nods his silver head in understanding. “ _I_ was in the hospital, for ridiculous reasons,” he confesses. An amused smile begins to bloom on Morooka’s face. “That was because Vitya— that’s me, by the way, it’s what I call the version of me living out the day over and over in Viktor Nikiforov’s body—kept dragging me there. Every time I tried to tell him the truth.”

He looks to Morooka, still chuckling, but the other man has retreated again, staring off into a corner of the shop, mouth drawn tight.

“You don’t like Viktor Nikiforov,” Viktor concludes. Morooka nearly upends the table. He’s on his feet in mere moments.

“What—no, that’s—I don’t,” he starts miserably, sitting back down. Other people in the shop are looking to them curiously, but Viktor doubts most of them speak much English. “…I like you.”

“It’s okay,” Viktor says, “if you want to cheer for the Japanese representative instead. Assuming your nationality hasn’t changed, in this body. I thought that was Japanese you were speaking earlier.”

“I don’t want to cheer for the Japanese representative,” he replies darkly.

Viktor props his cheek in his hand. Yakov has clearly not taken on the moisturizing routine Viktor laid out for him, he notes—the skin is leathery. “Well, I would. He dominated the NHK trophy and Skate America, or at least that’s what I heard from Chris. I wasn’t there.”

Another flinch, a mumbled, “that’s probably why—“ before he cuts himself off again. “Nevermind.”

“It’s okay,” Viktor asserts again, “if you don’t like me. I’d understand. I can be difficult. I just would hope I could convince you to at least work with me.”

“Everyone likes you,” Morooka replies, stuck on the concept, voice alight with an affection that settles like warm heat in Viktor’s chest. “Everyone… should.”

Viktor shrugs easily. “Well, just let me know if you change your mind. Until then, we should explore?”

 

* * *

 

Sochi—Viktor thought he knew Sochi, despite spending most of his life in St. Petersburg. But it’s different, wandering it with Morooka. They discuss everything they’ve ever heard about time loops, meander through the Sochi shops. Morooka eyes the street food with muted longing, and Viktor laughs and buys him khachapuri.

“I shouldn’t,” he protests. “I’m on a diet.”

Viktor laughs. “Diet? This isn’t your body, and tomorrow never happens. So eat! Unless your body is allergic to bread and cheese.” Morooka shakes his head. Viktor buys another khachapuri. There’s a freedom, in this time looping, a freedom Viktor has readily taken advantage of but Morooka seems too anxious to appreciate. It’s the vacation Viktor never asked for—and as they wander the shops together and Morooka’s tense shoulders begin to relax, he realizes it’s a vacation that was sorely needed.

Time had been pressing, for Viktor Nikiforov. A beast that crept up closer always, that battered his aging knees for jumps and whispered that he’d be gone before inspiration dawned ever again. Suspended in time, he has escaped all of that. Ironically, he’s also escaped it by becoming an old man.

Turning his head, he meets Morooka’s eyes, who snaps his head forward like Viktor’s going to lunge at him for looking.

“We should take this time,” he says, “to get to know each other.” He only realizes foolishly after the words have left his lips that they’re doing just that—perched on a bench in Sochi, people watching in relative quiet. Morooka closes his eyes.

“You could be doing anything,” he replies, finally. “You could spend any amount of money, on any luxury, and come tomorrow you could do it again. You could say whatever you wanted, do whatever you wanted to anyone.” Viktor blinks. Morooka puts his face into his hands. “Don’t you want to?”

“I don’t really know how to have fun,” Viktor admits. “But clearly, neither do you.” He earns a small, breathy laugh. He wishes he could store the sound. There’s a question that’s sitting in the middle of their conversation: _what_ do _you know how to do?_ He answers it. “I know how to skate.”

 

* * *

 

When you’re in a time loop, there are no consequences. That should be liberating. Freeing. Viktor’s lived a life of consequences: you choose to be Russia’s top skater, then the world’s top skater, and that’s all you can choose. Your daily routine is carved out for you. Your words to the press, as buoyant and fresh as they seem, aren’t anything new or deep. Morooka’s right: he could fly to Europe, could spend every meal at lavish restaurants, could buy himself a pile of puppies from the pet store on his hotel’s street and lay in them.

The thought hadn’t occurred to him. Viktor Nikiforov hasn’t needed to be creative with his life, free to pursue his own desires, in too long. He plays with Makkachin and is creative in his routines. So maybe he should be wild, should be unpredictable, should be running down the street screaming and naked because this, this time loop, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Nobody will judge him. Nobody will remember that Viktor Nikiforov, Russia’s hero, isn’t always perfect.

Instead, he and Morooka choose to spend their time with the only other person that can remember, the only other person where consequences are involved. And then, together, they are creative.

They go to the movies, the library, to coffee shops. Innocent, tiny things, the first week. By the third week together they’re swimming in public fountains and chasing each other with pillows, whipping at each other with sheets, around their hotel’s hallways.

“We can’t do this,” Morooka says, shaking his head fervently when Viktor first sticks a toe in the fountain. It’s warm for Sochi, but still freezing.

“So we’ll be arrested,” Viktor shrugs, a sparkle in his eye, “and then the next day we can wake up and get arrested again. Besides, they’ll just think I’ve gone senile.”

Morooka is the one apologizing and bowing when they go into the fountain. When they have a pillow war in front of the concierges and maids he is the one shouting, “keep up, keep up, old man!”

“I _am_ old,” Viktor complains. “That’s not funny, Morooka, you hardhearted man.” Morooka whips at him playfully with a sheet and looks mildly apologetic. The maids are scandalized. Every time he and Morooka do this it’s _please Mr. Feltsman, wouldn’t you like to sit down and rest_ with an undercurrent of _you are bothering the other guests_.

Sometimes he does sit down, takes a moment to breathe while Morooka settles beside him and gives him trivia on old skating records, both of them having become bored of the same Instagram feed weeks ago.

Morooka invites him up to his room some evenings, when Viktor is trying to avoid Vitya and Yuri Plisetsky, who is far less willing to separate from his coach for the day. One of these days, he logs into an Instagram account and proceeds to message his “internet famous” friend, predicting his newest selfie a minute before it occurs. He does not let Viktor see the phone, just shares the shocked responses of his friend with a calm amusement that Viktor can’t help but share. They order extravagant room service and spread the dishes out on the floor, try three bites of everything even though Morooka scrunches his nose and claims he doesn’t want to waste food.

“Then eat it all,” Viktor says impatiently, slyly, and the reporter makes a sound and says,

“I just—I’m going to be _so fat_ , Viktor, if I ever get back into my own body.”

“I like that,” Viktor hums, finger to his lips. “I think? I like chubbiness, a bit? Are you…” It’s exploratory. Morooka does _not_ discuss his own original body, his family, what he did in his life before the time loop. This is the only frustrating aspect of Viktor’s time with him, his reticence to share pieces of himself even while Viktor tries, clumsily, to mention his apartment and Makkachin and the books he’s read in his limited spare time, the French neighbor who he occasionally speaks to when he takes Makkachin on walks through his gated neighborhood. Morooka brandishes his newfound body like some kind of shield, as though he can’t bear for Viktor to see him, as though it’s something shameful. Viktor doesn’t know how this could be true.

Morooka, whose body is tall and built like an ideal skater’s, thin and somewhat wiry, buries his face in his hands.

“Not right now, but I gain weight… easily. You won’t like it.” Viktor thinks of pliable softness, a body as gentle as Morooka’s gaze is sometimes when Viktor says something that makes the other man chuckle.

“On the contrary,” he says, lifting the bowl with the last bite of borscht and handing it to Morooka, “I think I’ll like you very much.”

It’s odd, to be in the body of his coach. He’s sure that if he were in his own body, Viktor Nikiforov would have kissed his soulmate by now, or at the very least have started running pale hands over the other man’s shoulders and back. Viktor has never been shy with physicality. Here, his normal impulses seem dulled and quiet. There’s nothing sexual in his growing affection for the other man, just honest enjoyment of the company. _A kiss will get you going again_ , Yakov had told him, but Viktor wants to respectfully kiss him for the first time when they’re back in the confines of their own bodies, wants to kiss his real lips, hear his actual voice.

On these evenings, holed up in Morooka’s hotel room, they watch Russian television after they’ve cleared away the dishes, Viktor translating incorrectly and dramatizing it until Morooka rolls his eyes. They order champagne, desserts. Viktor has to refamiliarize himself with the different types of alcohol. Yakov’s tongue likes red wines and the highly alcoholic brews from the hole in the wall down the street. Morooka’s body is a lightweight, or so Morooka claims after five glasses of wine over the span of an hour, flopping over onto the suite couch and muttering incoherently.

Two months pass by easily, and Viktor starts to feel as though this time is no longer restrictive. In the mornings they have a routine—prevent accidents and disasters together—and in the afternoons they keep to themselves. They could live forever, in this hollowed out, secret space with each other. Maybe things could have gone on that way, if they hadn’t had something to pull them back.

“Viktor,” Morooka says, when Viktor is nursing a midday coffee and popping Yakov’s pain pills, “do you want to skate?”

* * *

 

There’s an old rink hidden in the depths of Sochi. Viktor would have struggled with the rough ice and the worn out borrowed skates had he been in his own body, but Yakov’s knees are shot, his bones weary, muscles mostly broken down with just a hint of memory from his glory days. Around the rink he glides carefully, breathing in the thick frozen air enough to invigorate his heart after so many days without skating. _Home_. Morooka, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to mind the dilapidated building, the subpar ice before a cranky employee finally brings out the Zamboni. After an hour, he’s landing singles; two hours, and he has a few doubles under his belt.

“Morooka was a skater,” he says to Viktor, sliding with ease beside him. “His body still… remembers.”

Viktor watches him, the way he holds his form, the grace of the movements. “You,” he says slowly, tasting it with joy, “you’ve been a skater, too.”

Morooka’s gaze dips to his laces, raising one leg self-consciously to rub his calves together, gliding still on one skate.

“Yeah,” he murmurs quietly. “Yeah, I am.”

As best as he can, Viktor flings his arms around the other man. It’s a move that would have been simple enough, had he still been in his own body, with its impeccable balance, but as it is they tumble in a heap to the ice.

“Sorry, sorry,” Viktor apologizes, and the joy that’s bubbling up in his heart feels so foreign. Sharing his life with his soulmate; not giving up skating, and not giving up love? Is it _possible_? Morooka helps him pull his aged body to its feet, brushes them free of ice shavings with a careful hand and eyes intentionally looking away from Viktor’s gaze. “I’m sure you don’t want me flinging myself at you for hugs while I’m in Yakov’s body. But when we’re back in our own bodies, when we get out of this… I’d like to get to know you better.”

Morooka swivels on one skate, expression suddenly grim.

“I’m, ah… my actual body isn’t this tall.”

“Okay,” Viktor says, eyebrows furrowing.

“My voice is higher. My hair is a mess no matter what. I have to wear glasses or I run into walls and couldn’t recognize my own mother unless her face was three inches from mine.” He pauses. “I’m not exactly… in shape, always, like I said.”  
“Morooka.” Viktor is more careful this time, when he reaches up to squeeze the reporter’s shoulder.

“I’m just warning you,” Morooka blurts finally, quietly. “I don’t want you to be too…”

“Disappointed,” Viktor realizes. “You don’t want me to be disappointed?” The shoulder that tenses beneath his hand lets him know he’s correct. “Listen. I am in the body of a man in his sixties, currently, and you’re the one worried about being a disappointment in terms of looks? I’ve actually gone bald, Morooka, this is my worst nightmare made real.”

The other man huffs in amusement, but it melts from his face quickly. “But when we go back to our bodies, you’ll be perfect again, and I’ll just be another dime-a-dozen person.”

The whole statement is baffling. Illogical. Morooka isn’t a dime-a-dozen anything, for one. And Viktor isn’t perfect. Handsome, maybe. Desired, definitely. Not perfect. It stings, a little, the high expectation that even his soulmate has of him. He’ll have to correct it. If he can.

“You’ll still be the man that decided to spend his first thirty loops rescuing people, even if things just reset the next day. You’ll still be someone that understands, even a little, what it means to be a skater.” He laughs, nudges at the reporter’s shoulder. “And I can teach you. Some people seem to think I’m good at skating, so I’m sure I could be a good coach.” There’s a soft gasp. Viktor takes this as possibly a good sign. “We’ll have you doing triples and quads in no time.” This is a joke. Quadruple jumps are nearly impossible for most skaters, and Viktor would know.

Morooka glides further away over the ice. Viktor squints.

“You can do triples,” he concludes, and Morooka nibbles at his lip. Viktor’s jaw drops. “You can do some quads, too. How long were you competitive?”

No response, just a nervous twizzle.

“You’re _still_ competitive,” he realizes, swearing suddenly in Russian. “Morooka. You’re _in_ the Grand Prix Final.”

“Mmm,” Morooka hums vaguely.

“Dime-a-dozen _my ass_.” Suddenly the blood is rushing to his ears. “Don’t _ever_ say that again. This is it. This is why we’re in the soulmate loop. We must have met on the ice that day. Were you practicing at the rink around three pm?” He tries to think back—it’s odd, trying to think back to a day that’s currently happening but for him was weeks ago—to remember his fellow competitors present at the rink with him. Christophe, Cao Bin… Maybe Cao Bin. They’ve never spoken before. He’s drawing a blank.

“No,” Morooka says softly, “I was at the hotel. I didn’t go practice till much later.” Viktor blinks at him, but there’s no explanation forthcoming, just a gentle sweep of eyes over the body Viktor currently resides in. “Your leg is shaking.”

“I should probably get off the ice and let it rest.”

He pulls out his phone on the stiff walk back to the hotel, sighs at the three missed calls from Vitya. Typically, a quick text of _meeting with sponsors, practice on your own_ to Vitya and Yuri buys him most of the day for himself.

Apparently, his absence has prompted Vitya into a state that Viktor recognizes well, because the voicemail is just his voice saying, “The second portion of my step sequence is unacceptable. It’s just lackluster, Yakov. I know you’re going to tell me to stop being pretentious but—I could do better, couldn’t I? Couldn’t I be more surprising than this?”

Viktor is struck by the horrifying fear that the reason they’re stuck in a time loop could be him, could be his inadequacies. He had felt stunted and trapped and now it’s real, and now Viktor desperately hoping he can change himself—change his life— has resulted in him being _unable_ to change, unable to be who he needs to be for his soulmate and get time moving forward. A lifetime of fitting into the perfect mold, being _the_ Viktor Nikiforov, and now he can’t fit when it matters most.

“Hey,” Morooka interrupts gently, “hey. Are you all right? Was the skating too much for your body?”

“No,” he reassures the other man shakily. “I’m just—this situation feels like it’s my fault, sometimes. Somehow, the universe thinks today isn’t going the way it’s meant to, and I should be able to change it, to perfect it. But I haven’t been able to.”

“Viktor,” Morooka begins hesitantly, “If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. But… I don’t think we can really assign _blame_. Life is never perfect, at least when I’m involved, and it’s okay to keep trying until something changes. When it starts to feel right, maybe the universe will let us move on.”

Viktor pauses, swallowing. “I have the feeling you’re a more patient skater than I am. With more stamina.”

Morooka chokes out a laugh. “I’m not better than you at anything, especially not on the ice. But stamina… stamina I do have.”

They stare at each other for a few moments.

“Let’s keep trying,” Viktor says suddenly. “Let’s meet up tomorrow morning and _fix_ this, get out of this time loop.”

“Okay,” Morooka breathes, “okay.”

They part at the hotel lobby.

 

* * *

 

Vitya, upstairs, is a mess. As much of a mess as he can be, with his hair combed perfectly, watching a video of his own practice sessions as though he can pull feelings from the moves by sheer willpower. Feelings, rather than the flatlining lack of inspiration he is actually consumed by.

Viktor, as Yakov, takes his phone and opens Youtube.

“You know what Youtube is?” Vitya questions, and Viktor snorts through Yakov’s nose. _No, Yakov doesn’t._

“Let’s watch some of your competitors, hmm? They’re young. Passionate, most of them.”

So they do. Cao Bin, stringent and quiet with brimming emotion. Christophe, who spends far too much energy swiveling his hips. Katsuki, who—

 _Katsuki_.

Oh, god. His movements are pure music. Seeing Morooka fly into clumsy doubles and sloppy step sequences in an unfamiliar body had been impressive, but in his own body Katsuki _sings_.

“Rewind it,” Vitya hums, quirking his head. They watch the introduction again, and with a finger to his lips Vitya declares with a brief laugh, “he’s my fan. Look at how he incorporated that motion—that’s from my short program in 2010.”

They flip to another video. “That’s from the 2012 Olympics free skate,” Viktor points out quietly with Yakov’s finger. They watch a few minutes more. “And _that’s_ an homage to—our last Juniors free skate, where we took gold, right?”

“We?” Vitya asks playfully. “Were you out on the ice with me, Yakov?”

They just watch more videos, a warm tingling creeping up from his toes to his heart. How _long_ had Katsuki paid attention to him?

“I didn’t know,” Vitya says, suddenly, a contorted expression crossing his face. “How did I not know? Wasn’t he also at the Rostelecom cup this season?”

Viktor combs his own memories, though the day is more distant for him than Vitya. “Maybe.”

“I like him,” Vitya decides. This, Viktor is sure, is an understatement. Katsuki Yuuri is perfect. “I’m glad he’s in third place.”

This is the last thing they say of him. Even if Vitya will remember nothing of this, even if it doesn’t impact his life, Viktor is grateful that they’ve made this discovery.

 _Yuuri,_ he thinks to himself, _Yuuri, I found you_.

He’s not sure if it makes things any different.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes the next morning, the blinking red numbers of the alarm clock are unfamiliar.

Viktor almost breaks it, in his rush to grab the thing. He laughs, wildly and with freedom, sets it back down on the bedstand and—

His room looks the same. The same as _Yakov’s_. Memorizing Morooka’s number had become essential, once they found each other—and despite his forgetfulness, Viktor managed to keep it—so he dials the number with thick fingers, speaks with the gruff tones of his coach.

“Morooka,” he pleads into the phone, “Morooka, are you there?”

There’s just a few gasps. “Still here,” is the final wobbly confirmation. “Still here, Viktor, _God why_.”

Still here, and—crying, Viktor realizes. He’s crying. Viktor hadn’t wanted to be left alone here, in this time loop, but now he wishes that he had been.

“I’m coming over,” he says, finally, “I’m bringing breakfast. And…” He’s terrible with crying people. Terrible. “Please don’t cry,” drops from his lips in a rush. Across the line, the other man takes a bolstering breath. “Never mind—cry, Morooka, that’s healthier for you to do.”

“I don’t want to impose,” comes the reply, low and shaking. “You don’t have to say this, or do that, and…”

“I’m hanging up now,” he asserts firmly, “and that’s only because I am going to go straight downstairs, get us food, and come back up to you.”

He does. Morooka blows snot into his new tissue collection, chews at breakfast listlessly. Viktor pats him on the shoulder and tries to show him cheerful puppy photos from the internet. Morooka cries harder, so Viktor exiles himself to the corner. This works for about two minutes until Morooka stands abruptly, goes and washes his face in the bathroom, and then comes back with a warm, damp towel and two glasses of water.

“I’m sorry. You’re upset too,” he ventures. “Are you…okay?” Viktor automatically nods, waves one hand dismissively. Morooka’s eyes narrow.

“No,” Viktor admits. A smile. “Not really.” And Morooka doesn’t try to get him drunk to forget that he’s not okay, or show him puppy photos, or push him. They sit, saying little, just a presence in each others’ lives, and it feels devastatingly intimate. Viktor is allowed to feel this way. Viktor is allowed to feel whatever way he’d like, no judgement.

At 10am, there is a phone call. Morooka jumps, picks it up.

“Hello,” he says. Moments later, he bites at his lip with a side glance to Viktor, and then there is a stream of Japanese flowing from his lips. His face goes sheet white.

“What?” Viktor says, “what happened?”

“I, uh.” Morooka swallows. “…I have to announce an ice skating competition? In front of millions of viewers?”

“You’ll do great,” Viktor promises.

 

* * *

 

It is 2pm, and the Juniors are skating. Viktor is crowded into a room with Yuri Plisetsky, who goes last, watching the other competitors. Or, mainly, listening to Morooka’s commentary.

“Ouch,” says Morooka through the mike, “that was a hard fall, though the rotations were good. I would definitely be kicking myself for that the entire rest of the performance. Probably crying about it later, too.” Nervous laughter. “Now, up next is a young skater from Finland, whose theme is…“ there is a pause followed by obviously shuffling, murmurs. “ _What_? No, you can’t be serious, that’s too scandalous, right? He’s so small. Oh, he’s eighteen! Um, okay, well then… his theme is ‘Passion and Desire.’” He says this in the same tone, with the same inflections, as someone might say _pass the salt_.

“Please,” Viktor says. “Someone please take the microphone away from him.”

“This is amazing,” snickers Yuri Plisetsky, who almost never fails to enjoy someone else’s struggling. “This is the worst commentary I’ve ever heard.”

Yuri takes gold without a sweat. The competition marches on. Morooka’s comments on the pair skate include: “And the pair skaters from Sweden are brother and sister, or so my notes say, look at that sibling love, so close— _what_ they’re kissing with tongue, hold on—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, the Swedish pair skaters are married, the _Canadians_ are siblings. Oh _god_ how do I turn off this microphone—”

He’s calmed down somewhat by the time of Senior men’s free skate. When he’s calmer, Viktor muses, he’s not half bad, just by merit of knowing exactly what the skaters are doing, and by clearly having kept up well with the competition. He knows their strengths, their weakness, their history—their _names_ , which is better than Viktor manages.

Then Katsuki Yuuri takes the ice.

This is the only time Morooka is forced to stop. The criticism is harsh enough that his commentary partner mutes his microphone, apologizes in a hushed shock, and makes his way through the rest of the commentary while Katsuki falls, and falls.

And falls.

“This is probably what everyone expected from Katsuki Yuuri,” comes Morooka’s voice from the microphone. It is abruptly shut off again. Viktor stands up in the back room, glances at Vitya, who’s practicing his step sequences with dancing movements, and knows he doesn’t have time to talk to Morooka right now.

Vitya wins the competition. Viktor can’t bring himself to care, even if it is technically his victory. Vitya doesn’t care much either, he knows. When all of the skates are over he tosses Vitya a ‘congratulations,’ and then storms off to the press room.

“How could you say those things?” He demands, trying to retain his calm, as soon as he manages to pull Morooka into a quiet back hall, cutting through swathes of people from the ISU, from the press, with Yakov’s notoriety and heavy scowl. “How _dare_ you say those things about yourself?”

Morooka’s jaw drops. “You know,” he states dumbly.

“I figured it out, yes.” He swallows, tentatively takes a step forward.

“And you saw the free skate,” Morooka concludes, expression dismal.

 “Morooka,” he tries gently, then corrects himself, “Yuuri, it wasn’t…” He wants to say it wasn’t that bad. But it had been. It had been nothing like the music he knew Katsuki was capable of.

“I knew it,” Morooka chokes out, screwing his eyes shut, “I knew this would happen when you figured out who I was. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pull it together by today because I’m _weak_ and then you’d see me but not _see_ me, not really, not how I want you to, and…”

“It was painful to watch,” Viktor agrees quietly. “But only because you were clearly in pain. You couldn’t put the right emotions in, and it affected your skating.” He pauses, evaluates. “Yuuri, you said you were in your room all of the first day of the time loop. Why…”

Morooka’s eyes look far away, out the hallway windows into the dark and snowy city.

“My dog,” he says, finally, lip trembling. “My dog died. The night before the time loop started. Got hit by a car.” He brings a clenched fist to his face, rubs at his cheek miserably. “The night right before the time loop—I could have _saved_ him, Viktor, why did it have to come one day later, why… they didn’t call me till the next afternoon, and when the time loop started, I thought, _I can save him, thank god_ but no matter how early I called my family, he was already gone.”

There’s nothing to be said or done, just misery.

“I’m sorry,” he says, softly. “I’m so sorry, Yuuri. If I’d lost Makkachin I would be devastated.”

Yuuri rubs hard at his eyes, presses his palms to his face for several moments, and then mumbles something incoherent into his hands.

“What?” Viktor questions, gently.

“Now I’ve lost you too,” Yuuri says, quietly, averting his eyes. His hands fall limp at his sides. Viktor’s heart goes to him.

“Oh, Yuuri. No.” Yuuri scoffs softly, shakes his head.

“You _did_ watch me skate just now, didn’t you? Unless—I mean, Vitya was getting ready, so—“

“I watched,” Viktor interrupts bluntly. “And I’ve also watched your other performances. Vitya saw them too. We liked them.” Yuuri breathes deeply through his nose, bites his lip. “You are the harshest critic you have, you know. Except for that, I’d change nothing about Katsuki Yuuri.”

The other man stiffens, lip trembling, but then something sparks in his eyes.

“When did you watch?” He asks, then clarifies, “when did you and Vitya watch me?”

“Last night,” Viktor replies, confused. “And I mean last night… for us. He was enthralled, Yuuri, I promise.”

“That’s why,” Yuuri says firmly. “Viktor, that’s why we moved forward by a day.”

“Yakov said the time loop would end when we… were close. When we met in the right way.”

“Right,” Yuuri says, “and we hardly know each other.” Viktor’s fists clench, the words stinging briefly. Admittedly, they’ve only known each other for a month or two. Just because this is the closest Viktor’s been to anyone in… years, in his whole life, doesn’t mean it signifies the same thing to Yuuri. Yuuri, who he’s certain is beloved, who he’s seen chatting over messenger with his family and friends at least once a day, even when they’re trapped in a time loop. In Morooka’s body he can’t call them, can’t Facetime them, but the love is evident anyway.

Yuuri’s brow furrows. He gestures towards the rink, where Vitya and Yuuri’s younger selves must be wandering, and corrects his own words: “ _they_ hardly know each other.”

Viktor gasps. And then he laughs. Yuuri looks at him like he’s insane, and Viktor doesn’t care, because the expression is concernedly fond.

“We,” he explains, still grinning, “we have to matchmake ourselves.”

 

They walk downstairs together, where Yuri and Vitya are waiting for him, _waiting_ being a very passive word for the fierce interaction that’s taking place. Vitya is smiling like a shark, pleasantly waving off Yuri’s tenacity.

“This is Morooka,” he introduces. Yuri snorts.

“Let’s go _back_ ,” Yuri groans, “back to the hotel. I am tired of this stadium.” And his fangirls. And Vitya.

Distantly, Viktor can see Celestino Cialdini, who he knows is Yuuri’s coach. He nudges at Morooka, questions quietly, “where’s Katsuki?” Katsuki is what they’ve taken to calling Yuuri’s past self, much like they call Viktor’s Vitya. “I see Celestino.”

Morooka sighs. “Standing right next to him.”

There’s a hunched figure decked in blue, hair messy and shoulders slumped. He looks nothing like Katsuki Yuuri, pride of Japan, 6th best male skater in the world. Higher, if you consider his personal best scores.

“Yuuri!” Viktor yells, and Yuri Plisetsky jumps as though it’s a gunshot. The blue figure turns around, eyes alighting on the Russians and Morooka. Viktor waves for him to approach, and Katsuki moves quickly. Quickly, right out the door. “Why did he do that?” He questions Morooka. Morooka sighs. Viktor is reminded, suddenly, of the months it has taken the other man to warm up. Meanwhile, Vitya is absorbed dimly in the movements of the crowd, of the swirl of snow outside the dark windowed doors of the stadium.

Bringing them together isn’t the perfection he’d hoped it might be.

He looks to Morooka, and finds the other man’s already looking at him, eyes wide and concerned. It doesn’t matter if it’s perfect, he realizes—not with this companionship, this sense of family. It’s worth pushing through Katsuki’s insecurities, shaking Vitya out of his slump, if he can have terrible movies and odd Japanese snacks from the international store four blocks from the hotel. If he can have Yuuri share tidbits from his childhood and watch a restrained, self-conscious smile bloom into a real one.

“Tomorrow,” he says, and from Morooka’s body, Yuuri nods.

 

* * *

 

They try many approaches.

Viktor realizes he has Celestino’s phone number and tries to arrange a dinner date. Katsuki, without fail, refuses to come. Morooka, having watched Viktor attempt this for three cycles in a row, finally reveals that Katsuki is never going to attend a dinner date that he _knows_ Vitya is going to be at, not after the day he’s had.

Viktor gets Celestino to lie and say he’s a sponsor, and that Vitya isn’t coming. Dinner is a tense and wrecked affair. Though he means well, Vitya royally puts his foot in his own mouth at least five times by mentioning Katsuki’s performance, and instead of handling it, Katsuki visibly loses the will to live. He gulps down three glasses of the restaurant’s champagne, and it’s not enough to calm his nerves.

“He was cute,” Vitya says mournfully as they travel back to the hotel by car, “I think he hates me, Yakov.”

“Understandably,” Viktor states, letting a fragment of stress leak into his voice. Vitya rubs his face into his coach’s shoulder, breathing shallow.

“Would you be surprised,” he says slowly, “if I wanted to take the next year off for Makkachin? To just… step away from skating, for a while?” _To figure out how to be a person? A person who can have a conversation with their cute peer without ruining everything?_

“No,” Viktor says. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Viktor gets a phone call that night. “Katsuki just called the press and announced his retirement while hyperventilating,” Morooka says lowly over the phone. “…Viktor, what did you do?”

The day repeats. Viktor does not arrange a dinner again.

“I didn’t know I was so close to retiring,” Morooka confesses, biting his lip over breakfast. “I didn’t realize I would—say that. If pushed, after failing at the GPF.”

Viktor looks down at his sandwich with kolbasa. It tastes like rubber in his mouth.

“Please don’t retire,” he says. Morooka’s expression is nothing but pure confusion.

“Why?”

“We know each other now, don’t we?” Viktor is trying to be careful. Instead he is plowing hopelessly into the topic. “…We could skate together?” He wants their day at the rink again. He wants it in his own body, landing quadruple flips with Yuuri at his side. He wants skating and love and coming home together with aching muscles in the evenings.

There’s a soft gasp. Morooka drops his plate of _blini_ onto the bed, raspberry jam bleeding over the sheets. Luckily, everything is self-cleaning in a time loop.

“You—um—you want to,” he says, incomprehensible, and Viktor can only reply with a gentle chuckle before the other man shoves his face in his hands and finishes, “please. I want to.”

 

* * *

 

Morooka’s announcing is improving. Viktor is, unfortunately, the only one that can appreciate it.

Katsuki’s skating, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired.

“I could try talking to Katsuki,” Viktor offers. Morooka shakes his head, slowly.

“I’m sure I spent the night overeating, not sleeping, and reading social media while I buzzed with anxiety. There’s nothing… nothing to be done.”

So they don’t approach Katsuki beforehand.

One day, Morooka corners Katsuki after the free skate. Viktor can see him, his expression of frustrated passion, and as he and Yuri and Vitya sweep by he hears it.

“Don’t give up! It’s too early for you to retire.” This, this from the man that a month ago had been willing to tear his own skating apart on international television. All because he wants to skate with _Viktor_ , because Viktor has reminded him of how much he loves the sport, of how a future could exist for him in it.

Viktor can feel the warmth blooming in his chest.

Yuri’s biting harshly at Vitya, and Viktor decides to coach him a bit (what’s the harm in practicing? He’s meant to be a coach someday, he thinks, though he’s not sure when or how).

Yuri looks off, rebelliously disinterested, and Viktor follows his eyes. Katsuki’s staring at them, even as Morooka valiantly keeps his attention. Viktor nudges at Vitya, who comes out of whatever daydream he’s desperately entertaining himself with and follows Yakov’s eyes.

Viktor watches his face warm with recognition.

“A commemorative photo? Sure.” _My fan, my competitor, Katsuki, he did so poorly today but they’ll be a next time and maybe he’ll skate like I know he can—_

Viktor is intimately familiar with his own internal monologue. Unfortunately, he’s now also familiar with the way Katsuki Yuuri operates, the way he intakes information and misinterprets it, magnifies his own failings and insecurities. So Viktor knows exactly what’s going to happen next.

Katsuki walks away. The smile slides off of Vitya’s face.

“You don’t want a photo with Viktor?” Morooka asks, pleads. It is their third week here. Vitya and Katsuki are not cooperating. Katsuki and his little suitcase exit the building, his grip on the handle tight.

“I don’t,” the champion mutters, nearly dazed. “I don’t understand why…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Viktor puts a hand on his shoulder, suddenly filled with the smallest sense of pity. There’s not much he can say about himself that’s positive, but he does always mean well.

He calls Yuuri on the phone, right before bed.

“We can do better,” Viktor promises. “I can… I can control Vitya. I can get him to…”

“Viktor,” comes the other man’s voice, soothing even when it’s clearly not his own, “Viktor, it’s fine. It will happen, sometime, and it will happen right. It’s anxiety inducing, that’s for sure, but we can’t force this. We can’t force it or fake it, and you’ll promise me that, okay? We have to believe in each other.”

“And in ourselves,” Viktor adds, after a moment, and realizes that it’s true.

Viktor wishes he knew, sometimes, how to not force things. With Yuuri it’s easier. With Yuuri, everything is easier.

 

* * *

 

When they wake up on the day of the exhibition skate and the banquet the next morning, they’re both surprised.

Viktor had thought most of their time at the banquet would be shoving the two together.

Then Katsuki drinks, and suddenly, the main issue becomes keeping them _apart_.

“Oh my god,” Morooka says, panicking, “oh, I drank, _don’t_ _let Vitya see_ this is going to be a disaster.”

“Vitya,” Viktor says, calmly. Vitya is not listening. His eyes are glued on Yuri Plisetsky and Katsuki breakdancing. “Vitya, come over here and…” Aw, hell. Viktor wants to look too, because it’s infectiously delightful. This is a banquet that can’t be forgotten—this is loose ties, sweaty dress shirts, and scandalous photos saved but never shared. There’s something sparking sweetly in Vitya’s eyes. His posture is always too good, Viktor knows, from years of skating and ballet and having the world judge him, but now the straightness of his spine and the lightness of his step are coming from an eagerness to see over the crowd, to move through it and catch a glimpse of the magic that’s unfolding.

Yuri Plisetsky loses the dance battle.

Morooka has gathered Celestino from the balcony outside, where he’d disappeared to with a sponsor. The Italian takes one look at Katsuki, who’s currently using a bottle of wine as his dance partner, and takes him from the room.

“Did you see?” Vitya approaches him, breathless, “did you see that, Yakov?”

“Who didn’t?” He asks with a smile. Vitya is already scrolling through his phone, helpless smile locked in place.

“Do you think he’d dance with me?”

“Tomorrow I’ll make sure he does,” Viktor replies. Vitya huffs fondly, tilts his head in question, and then lets it go.

Morooka is inconsolable.

“In front of Vitya,” he mumbles miserably. “Right in front of him. Of course we’d need to redo today, after I went off the rails, of course I screwed up the soulmate meeting like that—“

Katsuki is unstoppable, and manages to get drunk every other night. Some days he breakdances with Yuri Plisetsky, others he has a lifting competition with Mila, sometimes he does both, and once he battles a furious Michele Crispino for Sara Crispino’s hand in marriage, even though after he wins it and Sara reminds him that he’s earned “the right to be married” he locks eyes on Vitya and nearly makes it to the other man before Celestino, led by Morooka, intercepts him. Viktor can’t wait for them to drink together. On one such night, Morooka’s managed to shove him into a cab downstairs, and returned to the party, huffing desperate apologies to Viktor and Vitya, who’s scrolling through the pictures he took of that loop’s breakdance battle and paying no attention.

Viktor puts a hand on Morooka’s shoulder.

“Yuuri,” he says, and he can’t even bring himself to care that Vitya’s in earshot, “Yuuri, _look_ at Vitya.”

“What,” the other man whispers. “Why is he…” Viktor watches it click in his eyes, watches the disbelief and the relief that spills into his eyes afterwards. “Really?”

“Really,” Viktor confirms softly. “Just let it happen.”

On the fifteenth cycle, he does more than just ‘let it happen.’

“Distract Celestino,” Morooka says. Viktor shrugs, grabs the other man and pulls him into a conversation about coaching that goes surprisingly well.

Morooka hands Katsuki a glass of champagne, asks a question that has Katsuki dumping it down his throat.

“What did you do?” Viktor asks, when Morooka returns.

“I nudged him, a little,” Morooka admits. “Tried to ask him questions about his future. And about talking to sponsors here. Enough to… make a man want alcohol in his system. Katsuki is, uh, going to drink earlier now?”

Viktor laughs.

“This is probably a bad idea,” Morooka warns. “I just thought… maybe.”

Two layers of clothing and a pole dance later, Morooka says, “this was definitely a bad idea.”

Vitya and Viktor both disagree.

Katsuki makes a come-hither gesture, invites Vitya to dance from across the room, and blue eyes dart to Yakov’s face. Viktor isn’t sure if Vitya’s asking for permission or for advice.

“Go,” he says, “just go, Vitya. Forget the sponsors and the banquet, for now.”

From how quickly he goes, Viktor isn’t sure anything would have stopped him.

It’s strange, to watch himself twirl across the floor, to watch Katsuki whirl with drunken grace, loose smile spread across his lips, to watch himself laugh. To watch himself fall in love.

It’s addicting. Katsuki dips Vitya, and the last of any public mask the champion had left streams off his face. There’s only purity, only adoration and excitement so raw that watching it presses the air from his lungs. Like this, he thinks he could love Vitya. Vitya, in all his former defensiveness and his disinterest and his pleading, futile grasping for love and inspiration. Viktor can love himself, just a little. He loves Yuuri so much more.

And Katsuki asks Vitya to be his _coach_.

Viktor wonders how long that thought has been dancing on the tip of Katsuki’s tongue, if maybe Morooka had wanted that, too, even after he learned they were soulmates, even after they were trapped in the time loop.

He and Morooka watch, wordlessly, as their younger selves collapse with breathless laughter into a pile in the room’s corner. Vitya is sitting, cross-legged, in his Armani suit on the floor. He doesn’t seem to care.

“Let me—let me take him to his room?” Vitya asks, pleads, at the end of the night, because that means precious minutes more with the other man, and Celestino hesitates.

“It’s fine,” Morooka says, at the Italian man’s elbow, “Nikiforov is a gentleman.”

Celestino lets him. Vitya pulls the Japanese skater, who’s chattering sleepy and pleased nonsense, to his feet, offers his arm as though the other man only needs it for chivalry’s sake, not because his vision is blurry and his feet totter on every third step.

They almost make it to the door.

“Oh!” Katsuki gasps. “Oh, I forgot, I have to. I have to.” He squirms, twists on Vitya’s arm, who can’t bear to take his eyes off the younger skater to even follow his gaze. “Morooka!”

Morooka stiffens. “Uh, yes? …Katsuki?”

“I’m not…” he pauses, squeezes his dilated eyes shut for a few moments. The next words that slur from his lips aren’t in English. Morooka laughs and calls something back.

“What did he say?” Viktor asks, morbidly curious. Morooka runs a hand through the hair at the back of his head, looks to Viktor with a hesitant smile.

“He said he thought about it, and that he isn’t retiring,” he says, quietly, “he says he found a new coach, so now he won’t retire. He thanked me for… believing in him, earlier. And also that he wishes people would stop coming up and yelling at him, while he’s in Sochi, he’s very tired of it.”

Viktor wishes he knew what to say, but his throat is tightening, and he might not be able to say it anyway.

Katsuki saves him again. Viktor doesn’t have to say anything at all, because Katsuki takes Vitya by the tie and tugs him down smoothly, lays a wavering kiss on the other man’s cheek.

“I adore you,” he hums, “you’re better than I’d dreamed, even.”

Vitya, punch-drunk with blue eyes wide, gives a laugh that’s more like a gasp, shifts his hold on Katsuki until he’s supporting him, touching him, in every way possible.

“You’re better than I could have dreamed, too.”

 

* * *

 

“We’re sappy,” Morooka—no, Yuuri— says. “Are we really that sappy? Are we too dramatic?”

“Never,” Viktor huffs, offended, “there’s no such thing.” His soulmate laughs.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Yuuri questions, hope clawing at his tone while they stare each other down in the hotel hallway, and Viktor nods. Takes one step towards Yakov’s room, while Yuuri looks back to Morooka’s.

“Tomorrow.”

* * *

 

He opens his eyes to that same red alarm clock. Groans. Reaches out with one pale, slim hand to turn it off.

_My hand my hand my hand—_

In moments he is up, sprinting around the room and flinging on clothes—clothes for Viktor Nikiforov, clothes he chose and bought for his own body—and every second all his mind can hear is Yuuri’s words, the sound of his blades cutting the ice as he masters the element.

As Morooka, Yuuri had _shown_ him his actual room multiple times. It’s easy enough, to rush there, to knock on the door.

It’s not until he stands there, panting, hand raised in the silence of the hallway in early morning, that he realizes how much he _wants_ , and terrifyingly, how much things could _change_. Yuuri liked Viktor as Yakov, when he was Morooka. When they were trapped together on the same day. But now, now Yuuri is free. Maybe—

The door opens. Yuuri is all dark ruffled hair, sleepy eyes. Viktor all but flings himself forward, captures him in a hug.

“Yuuri,” he breathes.

Arms are suddenly laced around him, squeezing lightly, and Viktor backs them both into the room without letting go, kicking the door closed. His throat aches and closes off, leaving him unable to speak, but he just tightens his grip and rubs his face into Yuuri’s neck. The Japanese man smells of warmth, of earth and lava, something new and different but that fits him, somehow.

A quiet voice is mumbling something into his shoulder.

“Hmm?”

There’s a sigh, a shift, and he pulls back to meet Viktor’s gaze with brandy eyes, lighter than Morooka’s but just as open.

“You still want this?”

The laugh falls from his mouth, uncalculated and completely disbelieving. “Yes.” He kisses his soulmate’s nose, paints it and his cheeks pink. This—this makes sense. Everything matches, now—the grace in the other man’s movements, the roundness and youth of his face. He had always been Yuuri, even trapped in the same day and within a different body, but now there’s so much _more_ of him on display. “Yes,” he repeats, pushing their foreheads together. “…Yes?”

Their lips meet, gentle and cautious, and then they fall into each other with the familiarity of longtime lovers come home from war, fierce and long and desperate.

The brandy eyes are closed, and when they pause for breath Viktor presses butterfly kisses to both eyelids. “What, am I not to your taste now? You prefer Yakov?”

Yuuri flinches and mumbles: “Too much.” When Viktor’s hands begin to trace small circles on his hips, where they rest, he elaborates, “I haven’t gotten used to you—yet. You’re just very…”

“Very?”

“Pretty,” Yuuri blurts, and buries his face into Viktor’s shoulder, embarrassed. “I mean, handsome. I mean, not as though…”

“I can be both of those things,” Viktor laughs. “But it’s jarring for me, too. Morooka wasn’t so soft.”

Yuuri’s hand darts to his belly, between them, and Viktor has to puzzle this for a few moments before leaning in for another kiss. “No, not like that. Just… everywhere. The air about you.”

Yuuri squints. “I don’t see it. Though, I’m now basically blind again.”

Viktor gasps. “It was me. I’m too pretty to lay eyes on.” The other man’s jaw drops before he lightly shoves him, chuckling. Viktor takes a step back, hands sliding over Yuuri’s hips, and then he shoves back, gently but insistently, till the other man is crowded against a wall.

“So,” he begins softly, “technically, we met two days ago.”

“Hmm,” his partner replies, “time seems to drag when you’re around, then.”

“I’m ignoring that very rude comment and continuing on with setting the mood.”

“Setting the mood?” Yuuri laughs, a questioning tilt to his dark head, and then Viktor wipes the confusion off of his face by kissing him hard, tongue against tongue, till they’re both gasping. “You’re—serious,” Yuuri breathes out. “You want—with me—now?”

“Always,” Viktor says seriously. “Always, from now on.”

Yuuri still tastes like champagne. Viktor takes him to the bathroom and they brush their teeth with their pinkies interlocked, slide under the shower spray together, familiarize themselves with a body whose soul they’ve known for so long. With a reverent gaze that’s almost disbelieving, Yuuri’s hands and hips and lips stutter along with his own. It feels like home.

“Bed?” He asks, lapping droplets from where they pool on Yuuri’s collarbones.

“Yeah.”

They’re laying in the afterglow when a buzzing comes from Viktor’s pants pocket; Yuuri gestures languidly at it from where his head is pillowed on Viktor’s chest.

“We can’t ignore phone calls anymore,” Viktor sighs. His mood changes, when he plucks the phone up and sees the caller ID, eyes stinging. “It’s, ah, Yakov.” Yuuri sits up, hair fluffy and raised.

“You haven’t seen him in months,” he says, warmly. His fingers clutch at the sheets. “You should go.”

Viktor almost feels the urge to protest, but it’s Yakov, Yakov who has been his family more than anyone else, Yakov who was taken away from him during the time loop.

“And you’ll stay right there,” Viktor asserts, then relenting and forming it into a question, “and wait for me?”

“I’ll be back asleep in no time,” Yuuri promises, fingertips twirling over his tanned stomach before he rolls over and buries his face in the pillow, muffling his final words. “You realize that you woke me up, don’t you? Who wakes up at _seven_ after a party that lasts all night?”

“Someone very excited to see you.” He meanders over, threads a hand through the other man’s hair, who rolls his head back with a content sigh. “I certainly hope I made waking up worth your while.”

There’s that laugh—from Yuuri’s own voice, his own body, but it’s just as true and amused as it was in Morooka’s. Higher, maybe, more melodious and rhythmic. Viktor still wants to hear it every day, time loop or no.

He knocks on Yakov’s door, and then politely listens to the ensuing rant.

“Last night, dancing drunk with a half naked man in front of all of the sponsors, what were you _thinking_ , what was I thinking to stand by and watch you, do I have to get you another puppy to settle your unending desire for attention— _what_ are you doing, Vitya?”

“What do you mean?” Viktor asks, genuinely innocent.

“You’re—you’re _listening_ to me,” Yakov sputters. His face is blotchy and red. Viktor wants to kiss him on the cheek.

“I love you, Yakov,” he says softly. His older coach’s eyes narrow.

“Are you still drunk? Did you hit your head?” There’s a pause. “Are you retiring?”

“No,” he laughs, “no, not yet. I just missed you, Yakov. And I am aware of how frustrating I can be, now.”

Yakov tries and fails to subtly pinch himself.

“What happened.”

“Soulmate time loop,” Viktor says, with a shrug and a grin. “Yakov, I have so much to tell you.”

There’s pity in Yakov’s eyes.

“What?” Viktor asks. “What’s wrong? Anyway, you won’t believe how much you could get away with as an elderly person, Yakov, they let me swim in the public fountain and then… then…”

He remembers the fountain. Freezing. He’d dipped his toes in it, turned around and teased the person he was with. Drank hot chocolate after, he thinks, or maybe that was the next day—

"Viktor," Yakov says, slowly, "people aren't meant to remember soulmate time loops. That's—that's a lot of time, condensed into a few days, it’d drive you insane. It's amazing that you remember any of it. Why do you think I was so vague, when I was telling you about how to handle a soulmate time loop? Nobody remembers them properly. Vitya, exactly how long were you..."

Viktor holds his head. His hair is silver and soft beneath his fingers. "I remember," he replies. He tries to keep his voice firm. "I remember. It was months. He will, too." Bits and pieces are already fading, but Viktor doesn't need those-- he's not greedy enough to have to remember every moment, to remember laughing until coffee came out of Yakov's nose, to remember the silly things he never thought another person would let him get away with, not while looking at him with such loving eyes. He takes Yuuri's personality, his hesitant smile, and stores it deep in his heart. “We both remember. How could we forget?” Days and days and days, no—all the same three days, stretched out past the breaking point.

“I love you too, Vitya,” Yakov says, the declaration much too late, his voice like gravel. He has stated this aloud only once before, shortly after telling Viktor he had to move in with him, that his mother was gone. Viktor feels dizzy, the air sucked from his lungs. He leaves Yakov’s room and sprints down the hall.

“Tell me his name, you fool!” Yakov shouts after him. But that would be accepting that Viktor could forget, makes it undeniable that he would forget, and he just has to reach Yuuri as quickly as possible, he can’t—

Yuuri is checked out of his room, when Viktor returns to it.

Viktor goes to the airport, like some kind of lovestruck fool in an American movie. He doesn't make it past customs, but he glimpses the Japanese skater and his messy hair, waiting in another line, probably to check his passport. The brandy eyes dart, settle on nearby travelers and airport staff, and finally, finally, alight on Viktor.

 _Even if he doesn't remember the time loop_ , Viktor thinks,  _even then, we have last night, don't we?_

Yuuri rubs fiercely at his eyes beneath blue glasses. His face contorts, and he looks behind him, to his left, as though Viktor could be looking at anyone else. Anyone but him. Viktor, who hasn't looked at anyone else in months.

Something in him shifts, shudders.

Months? Why would he think it had been months? He only really met Yuuri yesterday, and admittedly, it had been the best night of his life, but that gave him no right to follow the poor man, to throw himself at Katsuki. Three days ago he’d watched him on Youtube with Yakov, hadn’t even realized the other man’s existence was so essential to him.

It’s embarrassing, he thinks, how quickly he’s capable of falling in love. One night, just one, and he’s done for.

Viktor turns, and goes back to his apartment with Makkachin, back to gray and days that bleed weakly into one another, the colorful silhouette that is Katsuki Yuuri dancing only at the edge of his dreams. Until the video, and the travel, and the settling into a new routine, a routine with Yuuri that lets him pass through the other man’s careful defenses.

It’s the strangest thing, he thinks. When they step into the ocean, when Yuuri laughingly smacks him with pillows and sheets as they play-fight before bed, when Yuuri shows him where to find the best tea and coffee in Hasetsu and they spend their rest days curled up in a cozy restaurant together, stealing kisses. It’s layered in sweet déjà vu, comforting familiarity.

“Do you think,” he says, playing with Yuuri’s fingers, “do you think we met in another life?”

Yuuri considers it. “No,” he decides. “If I could have another life, I’d live out this time with you again.”

* * *

 

They go out together, after Yuuri and Yuri take the podium. Viktor never thought his ideal outing would be with his coach, his coach’s ex-wife, Yuri Plisetsky, and his own student, but here he is, hand pliable and warm in Yuuri’s, waiting patiently at a crowded family restaurant while Yakov accidentally yells at the hostess about their reservation.

“Don’t let them _sit together_ ,” Yuri Plisetsky warns. Yakov rolls his eyes, well aware that nothing will stop them from holding hands.

“We’d just play footsie across you,” Viktor chirps. Yuri pulls out a chair so quickly that it knocks against Viktor’s unsuspecting elbow. Yuuri pulls out a chair so gently that Viktor hardly notices, sits in it only when his fiancé shyly gestures to it and beams as the Japanese skater pushes him in.

“You’ve known each other for a whole year, and you’re acting like you started dating yesterday,” Yuri snorts derisively.

Yakov stops unwrapping his silverware. “A year?”

“We first met at the Sochi banquet, Yakov, don’t you remember?” Viktor asks cheerfully. “Well, technically, the day before that, but we don’t count it.”

“Your soulmate time loop,” Yakov states. "I thought it might be him. I didn't want to say it and not be sure." Yuri Plisetsky knocks over his glass of water, which Viktor manages to catch smoothly before turning back to Yakov, processing, and then promptly drops the glass to shatter on the floor. Lillia clicks her tongue, disapproving.

“What,” he says.

“Of course,” Yuri groans, “of course it would be you two. Why did you have to tell them that?”

“Yakov,” Viktor says, “if you tell me everything you know, I will buy you an island.”

Yakov scowls. “I told you when you asked for my last birthday that I did not _want_ an island, Vitya.”

The conversation only improves from there.

The restaurant has one television, in the corner, and in honor of the Grand Prix Final being hosted by their city it’s changed to news coverage of the event. Morooka smiles out from the screen, goes excitedly through the day’s proceedings in English.

“Ah,” Yakov says, halfway through dinner, “it’s the only newscaster that gets things right.”

“I didn’t know you liked any of the newscasters, Yakov.”

“He used to be a skater, you know, back during a time when Japan wasn’t as invested in the sport. Wasn’t half bad. I tried to recruit him when he was younger, but he didn’t want to leave Japan, and you were barely 16 and my main skater. I think a leg injury made him retire after his first year of Seniors. He took bronze at Worlds, Vitya, you were on the podium with him.” A flummoxed expression crosses his face, clearly discomforting the older man. “I forget all about it until last year, for some reason. Now I occasionally listen to him, rather than the Russian announcers. I’m impressed he managed to stay with the sport.”

“Hmm,” Viktor agrees. “Anyone that is a fan of my student has good taste, and is bound to go far.”

“You think Morooka is my fan?” Yuuri questions. He twirls his fork delicately atop his plate.

Viktor sighs. He loves Yakov. He loves Yuri, and Lillia. He wants to take his soulmate back to the hotel room and spend a sleepy evening in bed, tracing out their pair skate over each others’ hearts, raising goosebumps on skin rather than cutting into ice.

Later, they wave goodbye to Yakov and Lillia, sandwich Yurio between them—who, despite his loud protesting and gagging noises, nuzzles his blond head comfortably between their chests as they hug him—and go home to do exactly that.

“So to get this straight,” Yuuri says, pulling on his pajamas, “a time loop happens until the soulmates meet the right way.” Viktor knits his brow, nods. “And the ideal first meeting the universe could give us was you not recognizing me, and asking for a commemorative photo?”

“I knew who you were.” Yuuri narrows his eyes, takes off his glasses and sets the frames on the nightstand. “It’s true. My fiancé remembers all of the parts of Sochi except the best ones,” Viktor bemoans. “It also had you dance on a pole. That was ideal.”

Yuuri flops to one of the beds that they’ve pulled together. “Viktor,” he whines half-heartedly.

“Honestly,” Viktor hums, pressing a kiss to the other man’s brow and tugging at the soft drawstring of his pajama bottoms where it lies on the bed, “It was perfect. Didn’t I tell you that you made me fall in love with you, that day?” Yuuri props himself up on his elbows, gazes towards Viktor with impossible, fearful fondness. Slowly, he nods. “I think the universe did all right.”

Yuuri chuckles. “It was trying its best.”

Viktor laces their fingers together. Gold, gold, everywhere.

“Any time we have together.” He kisses each knuckle, and Yuuri rolls closer, settles his ear over his chest to listen to his heartbeat, soothing and steady. “Any time we have together, I’ll gladly take.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yakov: I feel like I've gained ten pounds over the course of this Sochi GPF. I didn't realize it was so stressful to be a coach.  
> Viktor: *shifty eyes* That's so strange  
> Yakov: Nevermind. I always knew exactly how stressful it was to be your coach.  
> Whooo so. That was a long one. Hopefully I haven't scared anybody off!  
> Thanks, as always, for your kind words and support. I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long-- I'm a student. A student writing a thesis. Yeaaah.  
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://kiaronna.tumblr.com/)! So many people have given me wonderful ideas for soulmate AUs, but as you can tell, I'm very slow at writing them (and when I write them I kind of, ahem, write like 14,000 words and it's too much). If you send me a soulmate AU prompt on Tumblr I'll try to write a brief drabble for you. You can also, of course, leave them in the comments and I'll add them to my idea list. Anyways. Have a lovely weekend!


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